You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.
ADVERTISEMENT
CONTINUE READING BELOW
Download the free LiSTN audio app on Google Play, Apple or here.
JIMMY MOYAHA: If you’ve been watching any of the news events that have unfolded recently, you’ll see that there was an unfortunate accident that took place at Implats’s Rustenburg operation, which led to some injuries and some fatalities. We’re going to take a look at that in relation to mine safety in general.
Read: Eleven workers dead after incident at Impala’s Rustenburg mine
I’m joined on the line by the CEO of the Minerals Council South Africa, Mzila Mthenjane, to take a look at this. Mzila, thanks so much for taking the time.
Let’s start with the mining space, the importance of mining safety – obviously the procedures and the policies that industry has in place to limit and hopefully avoid these sorts of events.
MZILA MTHENJANE: Yes, thank you very much for having me. Maybe let me just start off by expressing our deepest condolences on the loss of life of 11 employees from Impala [Platinum], as well as to those who are still in hospital and have survived – of which there are about 75 – and wish them a speedy recovery.
To your question of the importance of safety, this is the number one priority for every leader in mining, and by leader I’m referring not only to the top job in terms of the CEO, but everyone in mining is a leader when it comes to safety and protecting their safety and the safety of others.
It is a ‘Number 1’ agenda [item] whenever we start meetings. It is something that is absolutely top of mind when employees first report to work, because this is what provides the context for safe work and for productive work and, more importantly, to ensure that people who come to work are able to return home to their families.
JIMMY MOYAHA: Mzila, what initiatives has the mining council been involved in to promote safety and provide safety resources and information to the industry?
MZILA MTHENJANE: I think in the first instance each mine – with different mines being designed differently, depending on the nature of the commodity – will have safety programmes and safety procedures and protocols as well as policies. They will have structures that they put in place in terms of employment and organograms to make sure that safety is a daily practice and a culture.
From a Minerals Council perspective, as an employer representative body, the most important thing is ensuring that we maintain good safety performance across our members.
We do that by learning from one another, learning from unfortunate incidents that happen such as what happened at Impala – as well as any of the other members – but also learning from good practices and where we see our members consistently improving on their safety.
So what we have in that regard on a monthly basis is we have an hour of learning, which is a meeting attended by the CEOs. We have every quarter the CEO ‘Zero Harm’ Forum, also led by CEOs – and these platforms provide for strategic conversations and decision making around what needs to happen to ensure that we maintain safety and have good safety performance.
We also arrange campaigns that are industry wide.
Currently we have a campaign called Khumbul’ekhaya, which really speaks to what that name means in Zulu, as in ‘Remember home’.
This is about people making sure that they come to work with the right mindset, recognising that mining is different from any other place, or is different from the place where they live. They need to be very conscious of safety and remember that they have a place to go back to when they’re finished, to home, and they really need to be vigilant and diligent when working in a mining setup.
JIMMY MOYAHA: Mzila, would you say we’ve seen a reduction in the overall number of incidents and fatalities, if you were to compare the mining industry to, say, 10 years ago?
MZILA MTHENJANE: Absolutely. I remember, having worked in the industry for the past 20 years or so …
There were in excess of a thousand fatalities per year in the 1980s. In 2003 that was brought down to about 270. And in 2022 we had a record performance from a numerical perspective, coming down from 270 in 2003 to 49 fatalities in 2022.
ADVERTISEMENT
CONTINUE READING BELOW
That is significant. It is still 49 too many, as one is too many people should a fatality happen.
So we have seen significant improvement, and it’s really been a function of, I would attribute firstly, more vigilance on the part of legislation. Secondly and equally important, as I guess a result of that legislation, working in partnership with government in terms of the DMRE [Department of Mineral Resources and Energy], making sure that leadership, as I said, is top of mind, and the decisions that are taken at the top are cascaded through to the face, ensuring training on safety performance.
There’s an important appointment – safety personnel – but as I said before, everyone is a leader in safety.
And so with all of those efforts combined, there isn’t any one particular effort that I can attribute to this improvement, but it’s a combination of these efforts as well as consistent improvement and learning from past experiences.
JIMMY MOYAHA: Mzila, these efforts are obviously notable, as you mentioned. Those stats are showing signs of significant improvement. Where it relates to fatalities like the accident that happened in Impala’s situation, can you potentially share what sort of factors might be causing these incidents? It’s very difficult, obviously, for you to speculate specifically with the Impala situation, but just from an industry point of view what the industry has noted that still needs to be addressed – and what measures other stakeholders like government can come to the party with, to ensure that we get that 49 down to zero?
MZILA MTHENJANE: The type of accident that took place at Impala is a very rare type of accident.
One can look at it firstly from the perspective of when last we had an accident where we had such a large number of lives lost and injured in a single event – and the last event was probably five to 10 years ago.
Then secondly you look at when was there this type of accident in terms of a vertical shaft – which would typically be gold or platinum mining or some of the underground coal mines. But in terms of the depth it’s also been a long time since this happened. One of the biggest of these, you may recall, was the Vaal Reefs disaster in the North West Province, in the gold mining industry.
Accidents of this nature are rare because typically these systems are well-designed systems with high safety factors.
And so when something happens, it is generally very unusual and unforeseen. And so with this type of accident at Impala, it is something that we had not seen in a while.
It is still too early, as you said, to speculate in terms of what the causes were. And there will be, you know, investigations.
I’m happy that the DMRE is supporting Impala. We are supporting Impala, and we’ll really be making sure that we’ll learn in terms of how to avoid these types of incidents.
We do see mining in South Africa growing beyond where we are, through exploration going forward, through new mines that may be either open-cast or underground.
And the adoption of technology is an avenue of improvement in as far as continuing to improve mine safety and operation.
JIMMY MOYAHA: The hope is that these fatalities do get down to zero, and that we do not see lives lost in the pursuit of mining activities.
Thanks so much, Mzila. That’s Mzila Mthenjane, who is the CEO of the Minerals Council South Africa, giving us a sense of mining safety in South Africa and the significant strides that have been made in that respect.
