Johannesburg — AGAINST the backdrop of a spate of fatal accidents in the platinum sector in recent weeks, a book looking at the causes and offering solutions to South African mining's poor safety track record is being translated from Spanish into English.

Prof Philip Frankel first wrote the book for a Peruvian audience because the mining sector there faces similar issues to those in SA, with a fragmented society mirrored in the mines, and it was willing to learn from SA's mistakes.

Prof Frankel, who was a history professor at Wits University, was called on by Anglo American in the early 2000s to have a look at safety on its local mines to give a fresh set of eyes to the dilemma of why safety initiatives were not working.

Since then he has done work for companies including Anglo American, its subsidiary Anglo Platinum and BHP Billiton.

Prof Frankel's assessment of what lies at the heart of the industry's dismal record, which is estimated to have killed more than 70 000 people since the 1890s, is blunt and the solutions he offers are not the quick-fix ones that would pacify a government taking an increasingly tough stance on mine deaths.

The industry has set a target for 2013 of aligning the South African mining sector's death and injury rates with the far lower ones of those of its peers in Canada and Australia. The target is unlikely to be met.

"I don't think we'll get to a position of zero harm, not unless there is a major shift in culture, improved management of relations between people and changes in attitude," Prof Frankel said yesterday.

Careful not to dismiss the improvements made, and the decline in the annual death toll from not far below 300 in the early part of this century to 167 last year, Prof Frankel said the solutions now appear to be quick fixes that will not see step changes in safety.

He identified three key areas as lying at the root of safety problems. The first is management "not walking the talk".

"There's a lot of rhetoric, but this comes up against production and it is production that comes out on top."

The system of paying production bonuses was singled out as a key element driving the practice of ignoring safety rules to churn out as much ore as possible to top up salaries.

"Miners are rewarded to take risks, so day-to-day they don't comply with the rules meant to keep them safe. It makes sense for them to take short cuts to break targets."

The second factor is poor human relations, where a strong racial undertone still exists on mines, and distrust and poor communications between a predominantly black workforce and white management remains.

"Lastly, the industry is demoralised. They have seen safety initiative after safety initiative, all good and lowering the fatality rate, but it takes a period like we have just seen for guys not to believe it makes any difference," Prof Frankel said.