South Africa will launch a nationwide safety audit in December on all mines in the world’s largest producer of precious minerals in a bid to reduce deaths and accidents, a senior official said on Thursday.
More than 180 workers have been killed in rockfalls, explosions or buried underground during earth tremors in mines owned by some of the world’s biggest mining firms. About 200 workers were killed in mines last year.
Stung by the loss of lives that union officials have called a ”genocide,” the government has vowed to temporarily shut mines whenever deaths occur and prosecute negligent mine managers.
Mining companies and analysts have expressed concerns that routine closures of mines would reduce output, but have also taken new internal measures to try to curb the accidents.
Prompted by an accident that trapped 3 200 workers at Harmony Gold’s Elandsrand mine near Johannesburg for over 24 hours last month, President Thabo Mbeki ordered a nationwide mining-safety audit.
”We shall start at the beginning of December, and the audit will gain momentum next year in January,” Thabo Gazi, a senior safety inspection official at the Department of Minerals and Energy, told Reuters on Thursday.
”We have over 700 mines in the country, and we shall prioritise them based on size and risk,” Gazi, chairperson of the council of mining safety and health, a safety watchdog at the department, said in an interview.
Officials had spent close to two months planning the logistics for the exercise in a country suffering a shortage of skills. About 190 inspectors would be involved in the exercise.
Mine accidents mount
Big mining companies in South Africa, including gold producers AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony and the world’s top platinum producers Anglo Platinum and Impala Platinum, have all had accidents or deaths at their mines in the past month.
The deaths have spurred the biggest mining union to plan a one-day strike to force companies to focus on safety. The union is awaiting a permit from authorities to call the strike.
Gazi said he would publish the technical scope of the audit next week. It would be conducted on a regional basis rather than by investigating an individual company’s mines, as many of the mining houses had operations across the country.
No prosecutions would be made until the audit was completed.
”This is an audit and not like the inspections we carry out when accidents have occurred,” Gazi said.
”We need the companies to cooperate, and if you start prosecuting as you go along, people will not cooperate.”
Gazi’s department, authorised to fine mines that fail to meet safety standards, has complained of countless court appeals by companies against paying fines. The companies fear that if they pay a fine it would be seen as an admission of guilt, and it could count against them in future.
A final report with recommendations for action on the deaths at the mines would be handed over to Mbeki, Gazi said.
”One of the recommendations could be that we tighten mining laws and review old legislation in this sector,” he said. — Reuters