Amy Musgrave
17 November 2008
Johannesburg — TRADE unions are considering ways to pressure the government to release a long-overdue audit on mine safety as fatalities in the industry continue to rise.
The audit was ordered by former president Thabo Mbeki in October last year after 3200 workers were trapped underground for several hours at Harmony Gold's Elandsrand mine, near Carletonville. According to trade union Solidarity, nearly 150 miners have been killed this year. Last year more than 200 miners died.
Unions expressed concern that it has taken so long for the audit to be made public. Although the minerals and energy department said the audit would be handed to Mbeki in July, his successor Kgalema Motlanthe received it last month.
"This cannot drag out any longer. We are considering legal action like (invoking) the Promotion of Access to Information Act to get the audit released," Solidarity spokesman Jaco Kleynhans said on Thursday.
He said Solidarity had written to the department requesting that the safety audit be released, but was told that it first had to go to Motlanthe.
"What we are worried about is that it looks like the release of the report is being prevented. Does the information implicate people? But that is not our concern. We believe the audit will say what practical steps can be taken to improve safety ", he said.
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Frans Baleni expressed the same caution. "Why is this report not being released? Is the information controversial?" he asked. "We did make a call on the new president to release it so that it can help us deal with the fatalities."
Although Solidarity has said it is pleased with the way the audit was conducted, the NUM would have preferred it to be done by an independent assessor instead of the department's inspectorate.
"We are of the view that independent people could have done it. The inspectorate's capacity is very stressed and we are worried about the quality of the audit," said Baleni.
The NUM is to hold a strategic planning session from Wednesday to Friday to consider mine safety in general and how the union could press mining companies to take safety more seriously.
It recently resolved to observe a day of mourning for every death at a mine.
Baleni said the union would now consider whether it should start taking more than one day to mourn.
Solidarity has suggested that a training levy be imposed on mines for every accident or death that occurs at the mine.
In June the inspector of mines, Thabo Gazi, told Parliament's minerals and energy affairs committee that the audit had revealed disturbingly low levels of compliance by mining houses. The audit was of 333 high-risk mines.
Mining houses had often fought fiercely against paying fines for contraventions, to avoid admitting guilt, he said.
Although the Presidency failed to comment on the audit, minerals and energy department spokes-man Bheki Khumalo said Motlanthe was reading the document and would comment soon.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Business Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
