The Chamber of Mines of South Africa receives demands from the National Union of Mine Workers

The Chamber of Mines of South Africa welcomes the release of the Presidential Safety Audit Report. From the outset, the Chamber has been supportive of the Presidential Audit as a tool to highlight shortcomings and leading practices with regard to safety in the mining industry, and thereby further accelerate safety improvement in the sector.

While the mining industry has halved the number of fatalities during the last decade, and 2008 has been another year of significant improvements in mine safety, we will continue to work relentlessly to further reduce the number of accidents to achieve our vision of zero harm. We therefore hope that the recommendations contained in the report will assist us to further improve safety in our industry. We will respond to the findings and recommendations of the audit in greater detail once we have had the opportunity to study the report.

The leadership of the mining sector takes safety very seriously, and has launched various initiatives to ensure the commitment is translated into action. Ours is the only sector in the country with a vision of zero harm. The leadership of the industry has developed a Roadmap to put the vision into effect, and the Chamber of Mines is actively engaged in the implementation of the Roadmap.

One of the issues dealt with in the Roadmap is the issue of compliance. The Chamber is of the view that the release of the Presidential Audit is an opportune time to focus on compliance in the mining industry. The Chamber will thus work with its members to ensure compliance with provisions that promote safety as well as health.

At the same time the Chamber believes that an improvement in compliance can only be achieved through partnership with the other stakeholders in the industry – such a partnership approach is one of the values that all stakeholders agreed to during the Mine Health and Safety Leadership Summit of 2008. The complexity and changing nature of mining bring challenges that are compounded by the slow progress towards a compliance culture in the South African society in general. Management, unions and the Mine Health and Safety Inspectorate therefore have an equally important role to play to promote a culture of compliance and the actions that will sustain such a culture.

The Chamber therefore calls on all stakeholders to thoroughly consider the findings and recommendations of this report and to work together towards preventative action and compliance, rather than allocating blame or introducing new punitive measures at a time when safety is significantly improving. This should be done under the auspices of the Mine Health and Safety Council. It is only by jointly addressing compliance issues that there will be a continuation and, more importantly, an acceleration of the trend toward safety improvement in mining.

For any enquiries related to this media statement please contact:

Jabu Maphalala
Deputy Communications Adviser
Chamber of Mines of South Africa