South Africa: Silicosis - Department of Mineral Resources Slams 'Lawyers Who Loot'

12 December 2017

Why is the Department of Mineral Resources trying to muscle in on the trust fund to be set up to compensate mineworkers with silicosis? Deputy minister Godfrey Oliphant says it's to prevent looting by lawyers appointed by courts as trustees. But previous attempts by the state to interfere in trusts set up through private settlement of disputes of this kind have been kicked out by the courts. Pete Lewis reports.

"Private litigation is a flawed solution to the problem of justice for workers who contract occupational disease", deputy minister of Mineral Resources Godfrey Oliphant told Parliament's portfolio committee on mines last Friday. He had been "discomfited", he said, by the past experience of the Asbestos Relief Trusts.

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