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The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and Energy, Mr Sahlulele Luzipo, has welcomed the conviction and subsequent sentencing of 87 illegal miners at the Stilfontein Magistrate Court in North West.
 
Mr Luzipo understands from media reports that the group was sentenced to a combined 696 years imprisonment. He said: “Although we welcome this conviction as indicative of the thoroughness of multidisciplinary operations by various law enforcement agencies, the conviction was going be more fulfilling had it included the so-called kingpins.”
 
Mr Luzipo said that a joint oversight visit to Klerksdorp and Rustenburg last year, in conjunction with the portfolio committees on Police and Home Affairs, re-enforced the committee’s long-held belief that illegal mining is run and funded by sophisticated ringleaders.
 
This became clear during a joint presentation from the departments of Mineral Resources and Energy, Police and Home Affairs when the committee heard that in one multidisciplinary operation, law enforcement agencies seized automatic rifles, rounds of ammunition and explosives at an unused high-rise concrete structure at the former Pamodzi gold mine in Klerksdorp. The three committees then unanimously recommended that all high-rise concrete structures be demolished and rehabilitated as a matter of urgency.    
 
Mr Luzipo views this conviction and subsequent sentencing as a vindication of the recommendations made by the three portfolio committees in a joint report on oversight over illegal mining in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Free State and North West.   

Issued by The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and Energy, Mr Sahlulele Luzipo