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On 25 December the workers of the liquidated Aurora Pamodzi Grootvlei mine will have been unemployed for three Christmases as a result of Aurora’s inability to pay the mineworkers, and the stripping of the mine. They continue to live in unsanitary and inhumane conditions with little prospects of future employment.

To make matters worse, these 1 200 workers have still not received the sponsored training and stipend due to them in terms of the Training Lay-off Scheme.

On Friday, I met with the workers’ committee and the mine manager of the Grootvlei Mine in Springs, Ekhuruleni. They told me that they have received no reply to their request for sponsored training through the Training Lay-off Scheme. The training would last for three months and be funded out of R2.4 billion set aside by government under this scheme.

To help the workers unblock this administrative problem, I contacted the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, which handles the training applications, as well as Mr Sam Moratoba, the Deputy Director-General of Labour.

Through this discussion, it emerged that there is a technical problem with the application: workers need to have a current contract of employment in order to qualify under the scheme. With the Aurora bosses having abandoned the mine and it being placed in provisional liquidation, it is not technically a “lay-off” and these 1 200 workers do not qualify, under a strict interpretation of the rules.

However, this application qualifies in every other way, and the workers themselves have located temporary training facilities and submitted the application. I have therefore requested Mr Moratoba to intervene, as his Department has the power to overrule this technicality.

Mr Moratoba has assured me that he will take the issue up this week. I trust the Department of Labour will treat this case with the seriousness it deserves and secure the approval required for the training of these workers under the Training Lay-off Scheme.

The Aurora mineworkers have suffered long enough. I will continue to do what I can to ensure that they have something to celebrate before Christmas.