Date: 02/02/2009

Source: Department of Minerals and Energy

Title: SA: Sonjica: Remarks by Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica at the release of the Presidential report on safety in the mining industry

Thabo Gazi, Chief Inspector of Mines
Comrade Frans Baleni, General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers (Num) and his delegation from labour
Mr Sipho Nkosi or Mzolisi Diliza from the chamber of mines
Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the media

Since 1996 the government has come up with a battery of legislative pieces and regulations to curb the fatalities and injuries that have characterised our mining industry for more than hundred years. Although these efforts have yielded some positive results, the situation in the mining industry still leaves much to be desired.

With these efforts, it was hoped that the number of widows and orphans occasioned by the mining industry will be a thing of the past. However, this was not to be.

For instance, in October 2007, three thousand two hundred workers were trapped underground for 42 hours. Had these workers not been brought to safety, this event could have resulted in the worst mining disaster in the history of our country with far reaching implications for this important sector of our economy.

This unfortunate incident prompted former President Thabo Mbeki to order us, as the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) to conduct a country-wide health and safety audit of (high risk) mines to determine the levels of compliance with legal requirements as set out in the Mine Health and Safety Act of 1996.

After months of hard work, I am particularly pleased that President Kgalema Motlanthe has given us the go-ahead to release the report.

If one looks at the statistics, they do not paint a particularly rosy picture of the state of affairs in this important sector of our economy. In the past three years, unsafe working conditions have led directly to the death of two hundred mine workers annually. This is in addition to the almost five thousand people who are also injured annually. Some of these injuries are so severe that they result in amputations of limb that translate into the loss of the ability to earn income thereby undermining the standard of living of breadwinners and the consequent increase in medical bills.

The following table gives the breakdown of the health and safety audit results.

Audit themes: Mine design
Gold: 73
Platinum: 69
Coal: 71
Diamond: 71
Other: 67
Overall percent: 70

Audit themes: Statutory reports
Gold: 73
Platinum: 75
Coal: 70
Diamond: 59
Other: 55
Overall percent: 66

Audit themes: Legal appointments
Gold: 80
Platinum: 72
Coal: 77
Diamond: 78
Other: 69
Overall percent: 75

Audit themes: Safety risk management
Gold: 71
Platinum: 69
Coal: 73
Diamond: 64
Other: 61
Overall percent: 68

Audit themes: Occupational health and safety policy
Gold: 61
Platinum: 60
Coal: 62
Diamond: 58
Other: 55
Overall percent: 59

Audit themes: Health risk management
Gold: 53
Platinum: 62
Coal: 66
Diamond: 47
Other: 52
Overall percent: 56

Audit themes: Codes of practice
Gold: 69
Platinum: 67
Coal: 68
Diamond: 60
Other: 45
Overall percent: 62

Audit themes: Occupational health and safety training
Gold: 74
Platinum: 71
Coal: 70
Diamond: 59
Other: 57
Overall percent: 66

Audit themes: Health and safety representatives and committees
Gold: 73
Platinum: 69
Coal: 67
Diamond: 64
Other: 57
Overall percent: 66

Audit themes: Mine explosives control
Gold: 66
Platinum: 58
Coal: 69
Diamond: 81
Other: 77
Overall percent: 70

Audit themes: Mine water management
Gold: 74
Platinum: 71
Coal: 70
Diamond: 74
Other: 69
Overall percent: 72

Audit themes: Public health and safety
Gold: 69
Platinum: 60
Coal: 73
Diamond: 71
Other: 50
Overall percent: 65

Audit themes: Overall percentage
Gold: 70
Platinum: 67
Coal: 70
Diamond: 66
Other: 60
Overall percent: 66

The mining industry has achieved an overall score of 66 percent compliance with the relevant requirements of the Mine Health and Safety Act. These audits have indicated that there are a lot of gaps in the safety standards in the mining industry. We are, therefore, calling on all the stakeholders involved in this sector to take the findings and the recommendations of the report very seriously. This is the case, particularly, in view of the fact that the audits were structured simply to establish whether or not there was compliance with legal requirements.

Employers have to ask themselves if particular establishments have achieved eighty percent (full compliance less twenty percent) compliance, what then are the implications for the workers on the workplace who are drilling a stop face, a tunnel, removing blasted rock or doing any other work at that particular mine?

Four critical issues stand out. These are showing undesirable results:
* mine design (70 percent),
(safer shaft installation, communication, backup power and secondary outlets)
* safety and health risk management (68 percent and 56 percent)
(risk assessment and implementing controls)
* health and safety training (66 percent) particularly that of health and safety representatives.
(training of managers in occupational health and safety (OHS), inspectors and OHS representatives).

There are comprehensive recommendations in the report that addresses all the established structures responsible for mine health and safety: Mine Health and Safety Council (MHSC), employer, labour, departments and Mining Qualifications Authority (MQA).

On behalf of government let me commend this report to the country and urge all stakeholders involved in this industry to internalise and implement the recommendations contained in the report with the ultimate purpose of ensuring that we improve the safety conditions in our mining industry.

In closing, let us use the report to build on the significant improvement in safety statistics experienced last year where there were 168 deaths compared to 220 in 2007. This has set a new benchmark for our mining industry which marks an improvement of 24 percent. This we can achieve.