South African gold mines are death traps

February 03, 2009

Commodity Online
NEW DELHI: Even as China is reeling under severe mine safety problems, yet another country is struggling to keep its mines safer.

According to a report, world’s top gold and platinum miner South Africa’s mines are death traps.

Safety level in South African mines, especially the gold mines, is disappointing. The country is now mullign various measures to step up security steps at mines.

An audit report of the country’s 355 mines came to the conclusion that safety steps at these mines are dismal.

Following this, the government in South Africa has called for tougher measures to tackle the problem.

The government has warned that gold mining sector’s compliance on health risk management was at 53 per cent, while that of platinum was at 62 per cent only.

Platinum scored only 58 per cent in mine explosives control.

Gold has not done well in health risk management and employers need to ask themselves that if an establishment has achieved 80 per cent through compliance, the government said.

Government felt that penalties in the law governing the mining sector were not effective, and needed to be strengthened.

Stricter safety laws passed by parliament last year which threaten jail time, as well as heavy fines for mine bosses, have caused concern among South African mining companies.

The amendments to the Mine and Safety Act 1996, which will give the state the power to impose fines of up to 1 million rand ($98,130) up from 200,000 rand, or five years in jail for mine bosses who ignore safety regulations.

The amendments are yet to be signed into law.

The safety audit was ordered by former president Thabo Mbeki after an accident in 2007 trapped 3,200 workers at Harmony Gold’s Elandsrand mine for close to 48 hours.

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