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JEREMY MAGGS: We’ll start with this and it’s a story of horror, tragedy, and negligence and not unsurprisingly, families impacted by the Boksburg gas leak are now turning to government for help. Seventeen people died at the Angelo informal settlement, more than 12 remain in hospital as I speak. Illegal miners were reportedly responsible for the leak, as they opened a gas canister.
This entire issue has raised the broader question of illegal mining in South Africa. So we turn to mining researcher and commentator from Bench Marks Foundation, David van Wyk. David, firstly then, can you explain the alleged role and responsibility of the illegal miners in causing this terrible gas leak incident?
DAVID VAN WYK: Well, I think that on the East Rand some years ago we found some eleven zama zamas that were shot in the head next to a railway line. Our investigations there showed that they were killed by a syndicate because they didn’t agree to the terms of trade. Not long after that, there was an incident where the police reported that there were zama zamas injured underground, that they were refusing to come up.
Our community monitors told us that on that weekend there was a trade that went wrong between the police and the zama zamas, and the zama zamas did not agree to the terms of the trade with the police. There was a fight that broke out and then the police called reinforcements, and everybody went underground because they knew that the police would not follow them.
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Then in George Harrison Park, along Main Reef Road, next to the Langlaagte police station, we’ve observed over the years, come month’s end the syndicates arrive, they buy the gold, and then soon afterwards the police arrive, and they take the money from the zama zamas. We also found this in [Sol Plaatje], also on the other side of Durban Roodepoort Deep village and so on.
So for us, the problem is multifaceted. What is happening here is we also find that there are security companies that charge rental for the land on which zama zamas operate.
They claim that they are securing that land for the property owners of the land, and the zama zamas who are operating there are obliged to pay rent to them every month for the use of that land.
You see, these things are never discussed in the media. No one ever discusses the complexities of the situation. Now, the next thing, which is very, very important for us at Bench Marks Foundation is the issue of the failure of the government to properly regulate mine closure in this country and rehabilitation. So the Auditor General’s report of February 2022 basically lambasts the department for not doing anything over a whole decade to effectively close and shut down and rehabilitate mines, despite the fact that there is some R50 billion or R60 billion available in a mine closure fund for this purpose.
A group of men known as a ‘Zama Zama’s, use safety helmets to pan for gold dust, as they search amongst waste material dumped from the Blyvooruitzicht gold mine near Carltonville. Image: Dean Hutton/Bloomberg
JEREMY MAGGS: So, David, could I ask you then, what immediate steps need to be taken in that regard?
DAVID VAN WYK: Well, I think that we need to begin to demonstrate to corporations that they can’t just operate as they please and, therefore, some of them should be prosecuted. Now, we spoke to Susan Shabangu some time ago when she was the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, and basically what was said to us at that time was that they can’t find the former owners of these mines, which is nonsense.
You’ve got a deeds office in Pretoria that will tell you whoever owned what piece of land before the new minerals’ legislation came in, which said that mines can no longer actually own the land, the surface rights belong to tribes or to local government or to whoever, but the mines can only have underground rights.
Besides that, there is the Johannesburg Stock Exchange that keeps meticulous records and so on of who owned what in this country in terms of corporate ownership and so on.
You can’t pretend that you don’t know. Then there was a Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy who said, okay, we can’t prosecute them because we don’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. So basically, it’s an invitation for corporations to act with impunity when it comes to the laws of the country with regard to mine closure and abandonment.
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JEREMY MAGGS: David, let me ask you, if all this data is available, why do you think there is this reluctance to act?
DAVID VAN WYK: Well, I think the answer is quite simple. If we look at the boards of mining companies and we look at the BEE [black economic empowerment] legislation and the actual practical application of that legislation, it’s mostly senior ANC [African National Congress] politicians who are in the shareholding structures and on the boards and so on of these mining companies.
So the reluctance to act is related to the fact that in the late 1990s, the African National Congress struggled to raise sufficient funding for elections and it had to find a way of doing so. So it deployed its cadres into corporations and we know who the mining billionaires in that organisation now are, and that way they could secure funding for operating the elections. We have American-style elections in this country. It’s very, very expensive for any political party to participate in an election.
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JEREMY MAGGS: David, you’re suggesting that there is a direct link then between political activity in this country and the zama zamas?
DAVID VAN WYK: Well, not just the zama zamas, I think big mining corporations as well. If you look at recent Al Jazeera programmes and so on about Lesotho, there was a whole party there that was funded directly by the funds from illegal mining.
But the problem with South Africa is the illegality is not just involving zama zamas, the illegality involves major corporations as well.
We’ve spoken to zama zamas who say it is the former mining company that abandoned the mine that is now buying the gold from us. Now, if you look at the logic of that, the logic is quite simple. It’s much cheaper to operate a mine where you don’t have any overheads, you don’t pay any electricity or anything, you don’t pay any wages. There are no pensions to be paid, there’s no medical aid to be paid and so on.
You just buy the gold off these guys very cheaply and you buy it at your conditions. It goes right back to diamonds in Kimberley in 1868, 1869, where guys would sit around and take diamonds off the labourers who worked in that huge pit that became the hole of Kimberley.
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JEREMY MAGGS: David, I am going to interrupt you, as important as the historical context is to all of this, I just need to push you with one final question if I can. You’ve given me a very disturbing and dismal assessment here. Are you also suggesting to me that this tragedy that we witnessed on the East Rand of Johannesburg this week is potentially going to repeat itself unless urgent action is taken? In other words, we’re sitting on another time bomb here.
DAVID VAN WYK: Well, yes, it’s going to repeat itself because no one wants to take the steps that are necessary. It’s like drugs on the Cape Flats. It’s very, very, very lucrative this business. So the kingpins who are involved, the politicians, the corporations, the security companies, the labour brokers and so on, who are all involved, don’t want this to end and they don’t want it to be legalised and regulated and controlled because that way they can’t get the gold as cheaply as what they’re getting it at the moment.
So it is going to repeat itself and they will respond with the policing response all the time, and it’s not a policing problem, it’s an economic problem. We need to repurpose the mines and the infrastructure that is there, which is all going to waste now, for alternative uses and for job creation, and we are not doing that. We are not planning for that; we’re not planning for a post-mining economy.
JEREMY MAGGS: David van Wyk, I am going to thank you very much for that assessment and I appreciate your time.
