No life could be ”sacrificed” in the name of profits, mining magnate and businessman Patrice Motsepe told protesting workers at a ferromanganese smelter near Durban on Monday.
Speaking to workers, who on Monday staged a protest at the Assmang smelter following Sunday’s blast that claimed the lives of five people, Motsepe said: ”There is no life that can be sacrificed in the name of profits or making money. I will not tolerate it.”
Motsepe, who is the largest single shareholder in African Rainbow Minerals, which is a 50% shareholder in Assmang, said that the circumstances surrounding Sunday’s accident appeared to be similar to an accident that happened at the smelter last year.
Motsepe spoke to workers after meeting with the Assmang management as well as senior workers’ representatives.
The explosion and subsequent fire ripped through the number six furnace of the smelter shortly before 5am in Cato Ridge, about 60km from Durban.
One person died at the scene while a further four died during the course of Sunday and Monday morning.
After addressing the workers, Motsepe told journalist that he could not comment on the cause of the accident until the completion of investigations.
”We are not representing shareholders’ interests if there is no zero tolerance towards [poor] safety,” he said.
Following the blast, the smelter’s six furnaces were shut down. Motsepe could not immediately say how much the shutdown was costing the company.
However, even though the smelter had been shut down, the estimated 700 workers were still expected to report for work to ensure that they were paid.
KwaZulu-Natal provincial minister of social welfare Meshak Radebe and Durban mayor Obed Mlaba also briefly spoke to the protesting workers.
Earlier in the day about 100 workers marched from the smelter to the Cato Ridge Country club with a coffin, which they then placed in the middle of a hall where a Labour Department inquiry into a manganese poisoning case at Assmang was being held.
The inquiry had to be postponed and was resumed later in the afternoon when the workers returned to the smelter.
The inquiry, headed by Vuli Sibisi, is investigating the alleged 40 cases of manganism caused by workers breathing in fumes with airborne manganese particles.
Manganism is acquired by over-exposure to airborne manganese and is a disease that affects the sufferer’s central nervous system, leaving them with symptoms very similar to Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.
Assmang executive director, Brian Brookeman, was about to give testimony when the workers marched into the hall with their coffin.
On Monday, the Labour Department announced that the company would be subject to a second inquiry that would investigate the cause of Sunday’s explosion.
Labour department spokesperson Zolisa Sigabi said ”a full-scale government investigation is under way following yesterday’s [Sunday] massive explosion”.
”The inquiry aims at establishing the cause of the tragedy, including any possible negligence or flouting of occupational health and safety measures,” she said.
On Sunday she said: ”Labour inspectors who immediately arrived at the scene have in a preliminary report indicated that it is suspected that a water leakage into furnace number six caused the explosion to occur.”
Earlier, National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) spokesperson Mziwakhe Hlangani said that the company’s engineers had ordered that the furnace be shut down before the explosion ”after it was detected to have a water leakage”.
”We do not know how and why it was operated by the night-shift staff operators, because it was declared unsafe to put it [the furnace] in operation and we believe drastic steps after thorough investigations should be taken,” Numsa local organiser Siphiwe Ntsele said.
He said it was the second blast in nearly three months. He claimed that a worker had died on December 14 2007, in a similar blast.
Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana on Monday condemned the blast and vowed to ”pull all stops in getting someone to account for the deaths and injuries” in Sunday’s incident. — Sapa