Inside Politics Reporter
ActionSA President Herman Mashaba said on Thursday his party is extremely dismayed that Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has disrespected the laws of the country by extending a mining licence to Vantage Goldfields to reopen Lily Mine.
Mashaba said the company is partly responsible for the tragedy at the mine on 5 February 2016 where three people Solomon Nyirenda, Yvonne Mnisi and Pretty Winnie Nkambule were engulfed in a sinkhole and their bodies never recovered.
With this decision, he said, Mantashe chose corporate allegiances above the interest of the families of the Lily Mine victims.
“How is it possible for the Minister to work with the very same company that was responsible for the tragedy, and disregard the work over a number of years of the Business Rescue Practitioners?,” he asked.
However, on Wednesday, Cosatu said it welcomed the agreement reached between the government led by the Minister Mantashe, with the Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) and the former owners of Lily Mine – Vantage Goldfields – to reopen Lily Mine.
Matthew Parks, the Acting National Spokesperson and Parliamentary Coordinator, said the agreement supports the Minister in exercising his power to promulgate a declaration under Section 11 of the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Development Act.
Cosatu said the agreement has been the product of extensive engagements between the Department, the BRPs, Vantage Goldfields with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and COSATU over the past several years.
“This has been a painful chapter to over 1500 workers who lost their jobs and most painfully the families of the trapped mineworkers, Solomon Nyirenda, Yvonne Mnisi and Pretty Winnie Nkambule,” Parks said, adding that Vantage Goldfields agreed to finally recover the bodies of the deceased mine workers.
The federation said the decision will see stimulus injected into the local community and economy.
Mashaba on the other hand said that Mantashe’s decision flies in the face of an inquest by the Mbombela Magistrate’s Court last October that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) should consider criminal prosecutions against a number of individuals – including Vantage Goldfields mine management, Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) officials and certain police officials. Plus a Constitutional Court ruling that a business rescue plan should be tabled to Vantage Goldfields’ creditors.
It remains unacceptable that eight months have passed since the Mbombela Magistrate Court ruling, and after having promised to make a decision by the end of January this year, the NPA is yet to make a decision on possible prosecutions while the families of the victims await justice, he said.
“The DMRE themselves have allowed the Business Rescue Practitioners to be in contempt of three court orders which determined that a proposal should be tabled to creditors to restart mining operations,” he said.
Mashaba also conceded, however, that mining operations should be restarted in order for the three victims to be retrieved and that the families should be compensated for the tragedy.
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