Illegal mining spins ‘out of control’

ILLEGAL mining at abandoned and closed mines was “spiralling out of control”, with increasing numbers of injuries and deaths seen at mines across all commodities produced in SA, said Christo de Klerk, CEO of Mines Rescue Services (MRS).

MRS is a nonprofit organisation that is funded by eight of SA’s largest mining companies represented on its board and proportionally contributing R42m a year to operating costs, and has 906 volunteers in four centres in major mining areas, as well as on large mines, to respond to underground incidents, rescuing trapped and injured miners as well as recovering bodies.

While the numbers of incidents MRS is responding to on formal mines is variable, there have been a sharply increased number of call-outs by the Department of Mineral Resources, with which MRS has a contract to assist with incidents on abandoned and shut mines.

“It’s spiralling out of control. It’s getting worse and worse and something must be done,” said De Klerk.

He suggested a five-point plan to curtail the growth in illegal mining, which is worth about R6bn a year, including improved policing of SA’s borders to stop the flow of immigrants into the country, increased effective closure of old shafts and working areas, tougher penalties for those found guilty of illegal mining and trade in minerals, better policing and breaking the syndicates dealing in these minerals.

From one body recovered in 2009, the number had grown to 22 bodies in 2015 and 24 so far in 2016, with five more that could not be retrieved, De Klerk said. Two years ago, the number of illegal miners rescued peaked at 51. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” De Klerk said, adding that the deaths were seldom reported by other illegal miners for fear of arrest.

The problem of illegal mining is experienced across every mineral mined in SA, with either commodities stolen from underground or copper wiring, piping and metal stolen and sold, he said. The majority of illegal miners came from Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, with a significant number of them having worked in the formal mining sector before, said Neil Metzer, the security coordinator at the Chamber of Mines, which represents companies producing more than 90% of SA’s mineral production by value.

There had been 600 illegal miners arrested so far in 2016 compared to 500 in the whole of 2015, said Martin Madlala, spokesman for the Department of Mineral Resources, which has closed 200 open shafts.

Thus far in 2016, the police had arrested 1,600 illegal immigrants involved in illegal mining activities, such as processing the rock brought up from underground, smelting and selling gold, he said.

The closure of shafts has led to a concentration of illegal miners in other defunct mines, and increased levels of violence and murder between groups of people working with hammer and chisels or compressors and jackhammers underground for weeks at a time, De Klerk said.

In one incident in November 2015, the rescue team had found 10 miners shot dead and tumbled down a shaft, with an 11th miner found shot dead on the surface, surrounded by a lot of explosives but stripped of all gold-bearing material, he said.

In a separate incident at another shaft, seven men had been found beaten to death.

The shadowy syndicates perched at the top of the illegal mineral flows had “migrated” to the Northern Cape and the industry should expect increased levels of illegal mining and theft of copper and metal infrastructure from diamond, manganese and iron ore mines in the region, Metzer said.