Anglo American will vigorously defend itself against claims by gold miners that they contracted respiratory diseases while working for the mining giant, a company spokesperson said on Monday.
”The matter is in the hands of the court. We do not believe that Anglo American is liable and we will vigorously defend the claims,” Daniel Ngwepe said.
Earlier on Monday Richard Meeran, a human rights lawyer for the miners, accused the company of deliberately delaying the case.
He said Anglo would seek further technical challenges to the miners’ legal claim on Tuesday — nine months after the case first began in the Johannesburg High Court.
The claimants, who are mainly from Welkom, are seeking compensation for gold miners affected by silicosis and phthisis — a combination of silicosis and tuberculosis.
”Anglo American is taking advantage of every technical legal defence to frustrate and delay this case,” Meeran said in a statement.
”Their tactics are not illegal — Anglo are entitled to take these technical points if they wish but they are stressful for the miners and their families and are delaying justice to people who need urgent assistance.”
The claims relate to employment at various mines which were owned until 1998 by the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa, a parent company which underwent a restructuring in 1999 that resulted in the shifting of its domicile to London.
At the same time ownership of the shares in these mines was transferred to Anglo Gold.
The statement said evidence showed that the Anglo American parent company was responsible for providing technical and medical advice to all its gold mining operations.
It said one of the nine claimants had died and the health of others had deteriorated since the case started.
Samuel Kokosa Kubu (59) was retrenched on May 28, 2001, after contracting silicosis. He had worked for nearly 40 years as a miner.
He died from lung disease — including tuberculosis and silicosis — on September 15 last year, two weeks after the legal action began.
They claimants are also seeking medical expenses.
”The ultimate objective being to establish a fund to monitor and treat occupational respiratory disease in former gold miners,” the statement read.
Over the past 100 years gold mining in South Africa has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of cases of silicosis, the statement read.
From at least 1913, it has been known that exposure to silica dust increases the risk of tuberculosis, it said.
”Dust standards at the mines were based on the assumption that 15% of the work force employed for 20 years would develop silicosis,” Meeran said.
”On-site showers and change room facilities were not provided at the mineshaft for black workers to remove toxic dust from their clothes and bodies.” – Sapa