There has been no improvement in mine fatality rates from 2014 to 2016, according to the mine health and safety inspectorate’s 2016-17 annual report tabled in Parliament on Monday.
The report showed the fatality rate per million hours worked was 0.08 in 2016, the same rate as in the two previous years. This is the key indicator used to measure mine safety, as it strips out the effects of employees who are on leave or on strike and takes into account the size of the sector, which has shed more than 12,000 jobs since 2012 according to the Chamber of Mines.
Solidarity’s deputy general secretary for health and safety, Paul Mardon, said the 2017 figures were likely to be worse, as it had been a particularly difficult year for the industry. Mine owners were distracted by the challenges posed by the Mining Charter, production pressures and retrenchments, and were not prioritising the health and safety of workers, he said.
"There should be an extra effort in health and safety, but it’s not happening," he said.
So far in 2017 59 mine deaths had been reported. While this figure was slightly lower than the 63 reported for the corresponding period in 2016, fewer people were employed in mining and thus the fatality rate per million hours worked was likely to be higher for 2017 than for 2016, Mardon said.
Mining disasters in 2017 include five deaths at Harmony’s Kusasalethu Mine and four at Heaven Sent’s Tau Lekoa Mine.
The mine health and safety inspectorate’s 2016-17 annual report that was tabled in Parliament on Monday shows 73 miners lost their lives at work in 2016. The death rate was 16.82 per 100,000 employees at work, virtually the same as the year before when the figure stood at 16.81.
Rockfalls and falls of ground killed 24 workers (33% of all fatalities) in 2016.
Mardon said many of these deaths were due to human error, rather than seismic events. Mines generally had good health and safety policies, but workers and supervisors who were under pressure to meet production targets sometimes put lives at risk by failing to stick to these rules, he said.
Machinery and transportation was the second leading cause of death, responsible for 23 fatalities in 2016.
The report shows the overall injury rate fell 4% year on year, with a 6% drop in the gold mining industry and an 8% drop in platinum mines.
The provisional number of injuries reported in 2016 was 2,846, compared with a finalised total of 3,139 injuries that were reported in 2015.
The number of employees at work fell to 433,980 in 2016, a 5% drop from the 458,174 of the year before.
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