Mungo Soggot
SASOL, the synthetic fuel giant, this week took a regional magistrate to court for ordering it to hand to an inquest documents relating to a mining accident in 1993 which killed 53 workers.
The magistrate, Mike Jungbluth, presided over the inquest which started in 1993 and was frozen pending the outcome of this stand-off.
According to Chemical Workers’ Industrial Union (CWIU) lawyers , during the inquest Sasol — which had a three-man legal team including leading senior counsel Schalk Burger — sought to shoot down argument from a team of top experts hired by government that it was a coal-dust explosion which caused the accident.
Some of the experts accused Sasol of gross negligence, the CWIU said. The inquest examined whether it was a methane explosion which caused the disaster — which could have been an act of God – — or a coal-dust explosion which could lay the blame at Sasol’s door.
The accident at the company’s Middelbult colliery, which feeds its massive synthetic fuel and chemical plant at Secunda, is the second major disaster at the mine: in 1985 43 workers died in similar circumstances, the CWIU said.
According to CWIU lawyers, Sasol argued there was no proof it was a coal-dust explosion, but refused to say what was the cause of the accident. CWIU lawyers then discovered Sasol had drafted a report on the accident for its lawyers, which included interviews with workers involved in the accident.
Sasol refused the CWIU’s request to submit the statement to the inquest, arguing it was privileged information between it and its lawyers. Magistrate Jungbluth upheld the CWIU’s application to expose the statement — which is why he and the union ended up in court on Thursday. The trial began as the Mail & Guardian was going to press.
Labour sources say the stalled inquest is particularly important because there has never been proof of the widespread suspicion that coal-dust explosions have been responsible for a string of fatal accidents in South African mines. The Mineral and Energy Affairs department is seen as having been unusually vigorous in its approach to the case — exemplified by the hiring of experts — in a bid to secure proof.
Sasol’s approach to the inquest is particularly noteworthy considering its successful attempt in the Supreme Court in 1989 to bar the attorney general from gaining access to similar secret documents relating to an explosion at a Synthol plant in Secunda which left 13 workers dead.
The CWIU has applied for extra compensation for some of the victims’ families in terms of the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act. It says Sasol has noted its intention to fight the claim.
Asked what compensation it had provided, Sasol told the Mail & Guardian: “All compensation in terms of the company service agreements and internal insurance have been made available to the families. All claims by the Workmens’ Compensation Commissioner have also been paid out.” Sasol told the Mail & Guardian it was taking the case because the magistrate had ordered it to hand to the CWIU “certain privileged documentation”. It declined to disclose the bill for its legal team, of which the two junior advocates have become senior counsel since the inquest began.