<\/p>\n
You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n
JEREMY MAGGS: Fourteen suspected illegal miners have died and eight others hospitalised after a rockfall at a disused mine near Rustenburg in the North West, with police saying others may still be trapped. Now that tragedy again raises the question of why dangerous, abandoned mining sites remain accessible, and who should be responsible for making them safe.<\/p>\n
Someone who has applied his mind to that is David van Wyk, who is a mining analyst and researcher with the Benchmarks Foundation. David, welcome to you. What should have happened to this mine when it stopped operating to prevent a tragedy like this? What\u2019s the ideal or the recommended protocol here?<\/p>\n
DAVID VAN WYK: Well, the ideal and recommended protocol is contained in various pieces of legislation in South Africa. The Constitution says that everyone has a right to a safe and healthy environment. So that should have been dealt with.<\/p>\n
The Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act says that the holders of mining rights remain responsible for environmental management, social labour plans and absolute site rehabilitation through application for an official closure certificate under Section 43 of the act.<\/p>\n
Now, unfortunately in South Africa, the legislation is there, but it\u2019s never applied and it\u2019s never actually regulated and implemented because we are changing from large-scale industrial underground mining to surface mining as the minerals become more and more depleted. Especially in that particular area, there are many shafts that are closing down and thousands of workers are losing their jobs.<\/p>\n
Listen\/read:
Illegal gold rush in Springs sparks regulatory alarm
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Police close in on illegal miners in North West<\/p>\n
According to their social and labour plans, they should have been trained in portable skills that they could take to other parts of the economy, which they never were, even though tax deductions were made on the basis of money spent in the social and labour plans for labour education and training.<\/p>\n
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Then, of course, the National Environmental Management Act (Nema), it imposes a lifetime statutory duty of care, according to Section 28, for any environmental degradation, damage and so on caused.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t always see the environmental degradation on the surface because once you go underground, you also degrade the water systems, the geological structures and so on that are there, which also is an impact, especially in places like Rustenburg, where you\u2019ve got a lot of seismic activity around faults all along the Magaliesburg area, which can cause earthquakes and so on, just like in Johannesburg as well.<\/p>\n
Read: Gauteng municipality pumping raw sewage into rivers in the Cradle of Humankind<\/p>\n
JEREMY MAGGS: David, given that the legislation is there, but there\u2019s a problem of accountability and implementation in this particular case, who should ultimately be accountable for making a disused mine safe? Is it the previous owner? Is it the current landowner, or does the state have a responsibility in that respect?<\/p>\n
DAVID VAN WYK: Well, it\u2019s the state and the previous owner or the owner. An owner should not be allowed to walk away from my mine. I have yet to see the government prosecuting a large-scale company for walking away from a mine. I\u2019ll tell you what the problem is, from the first policy gap report that we published, and we\u2019ve published 14 of them since then, it is a problem of the government not applying the law because there are politicians on the boards of companies.<\/p>\n
Every minister of mining that there has been, is currently on the board of companies, Valli Moosa, I can name them all, are on the boards of various mining companies and so on. And they are, of course, the BEE (black economic empowerment) shareholders.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got nothing against BEE, I think BEE is a good thing, but we\u2019ve got we\u2019ve got 500 000 graduates in this country that could have been favoured with BEE participation in the economy and in mining, instead of politicians who know nothing about mining are the ones who are actually getting favoured.<\/p>\n
There are lots of engineering, geology and other students who I come across in the townships who are sitting unemployed, when in actual fact they could have made a major contribution by being brought in to participate in mining through BEE structures and so on.<\/p>\n
So this is what is wrong. We\u2019ve got the legislation, we\u2019ve got the right policies. BEE is a correct policy, but it\u2019s wrongly applied. Just like our mining and environmental legislation is the correct legislation but mining companies get away by giving favours to politicians in terms of shareholding and board membership and so on, and then they can take shortcuts.<\/p>\n
Listen\/read:
Mining bill ups stakes: Full BEE now required to extend rights
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JEREMY MAGGS: David, government currently, as I understand it, plans to rehabilitate, I think the figure is nine mines and seal around 120 dangerous shafts. The timeline is three years. I would suggest to you that against the scale of the problem that you\u2019ve outlined to me, that is just simply too slow, is it not?<\/p>\n
DAVID VAN WYK: Too slow and there are 6000 of these shafts and the capping of the shaft doesn\u2019t work because they put a cement slab over the top, which anyone who wants to sell scrap metal just simply breaks up the concrete, takes out the iron rods and they sell it to scrap metal dealers.<\/p>\n
I can take you around Johannesburg, around Main Reef Road, how many of the shafts that they\u2019ve already capped are actually open again, because you can just simply go around it.<\/p>\n
You actually need to put a plug of 25 metres down the shaft so that no one can actually get around it, but that is not being done.<\/p>\n
The other problem is that old, abandoned mines fill up with water, because it\u2019s dolomitic rock mostly, and then the water comes up to the surface, and it will push any plug or cap away in time. That very plug or the cap also then causes springs to come up everywhere and the springs are acidic and very often radioactive as well.<\/p>\n
If you go to the West Rand, I can take you to many parts in the West Rand where you can actually visually see these springs that have popped up as a result of the void filling up on the West Rand. Also, the central void and the eastern void. And of course, the acidic water eats the dolomitic rock below and that causes sinkholes.<\/p>\n
Read:
Gold mine pollution is poisoning Soweto\u2019s water and soil
Baptism by toxic water: Mine waste, sewage threaten SA\u2019s worshippers [July 2019]
SA plans levy on mines to tackle acid mine water pollution [May 2016]<\/p>\n
JEREMY MAGGS: If minerals can still be recovered economically, do you think there\u2019s an argument that some abandoned sites be formally reopened to regulated artisanal miners, rather than left to the illegal operations, as you\u2019ve outlined to me?<\/p>\n
DAVID VAN WYK: Well, I think it\u2019s a combination that should happen. I think the artisanal miners should be allowed in because there is still some gold in there. It\u2019s not viable for large-scale industrial mining with huge amounts of labour and so on. But at least some people can put some food on the table when they do that. So I think that is that is definitely a viable option. It should be considered because there are many people in South Africa, with the high levels of unemployment and so on, who wish to go into artisanal mining.<\/p>\n
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But also, I think the current legislation that the government is proposing \u2013 and that was put on the table two days ago \u2013 unfortunately, it\u2019s too bureaucratic and cumbersome for it to be actually applied to people who are semi-literate and sitting in townships, unemployed and so on, wanting to do this work.<\/p>\n
Many of the former mineworkers would like to do this work as well. The legislation also makes it illegal for foreign mineworkers to be involved.<\/p>\n
The apartheid history that we have, mostly migrant workers were foreign, and South Africans were excluded from mining, expected to work on the farms under apartheid instead. South Africans would benefit from an alliance with foreign mineworkers, forming small cooperatives and businesses to actually get at these minerals.<\/p>\n
JEREMY MAGGS: Just finally, it\u2019s beyond just the mining orbit itself. Many of these mines, we know sit alongside communities where unemployment is extremely high. Is it possible, do you think, to solve illegal mining without creating bigger, more legitimate economic alternatives for people living around and beyond these sites.<\/p>\n
DAVID VAN WYK: If you look at Welkom and Jagersfontein in the Free State, for example, one produces diamonds not too far away from the other, which produces gold. During the arms deal, a jewellery factory was actually set up in Virginia. That jewellery factory failed because they paid the women who worked there less than the taxi fare to get there, and all the women walked away, and they imported cheap labour from Peru instead.<\/p>\n
Listen: Proposed minerals bill seeks to formalise artisanal and small-scale mining<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s just one of the scandals in the arms deal that never actually came to light that should actually come to light. But that\u2019s what you should be doing, you should be creating things like jewellery factories, cutting and polishing shops and so on, and training local communities to do that. Because African people are generally very artistic and creative, and they would certainly make a great contribution to the global jewellery industry as well.<\/p>\n
JEREMY MAGGS: David van Wyk, I\u2019m going to leave it there, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me, mining analyst and researcher at the Benchmarks Foundation.<\/p>\n
#SAs #abandoned #mines #expose #costly #failures #regulation #accountability<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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