A year in the belly of the golden earth

TEBOHO Gaddafi Lebona spent a year in darkness working in the belly of Welkom’s gold-laced earth and earned himself R200 000 in the process.

“I was a 21-year-old looking for ways to make quick money. I had been working for someone recycling mine soil and earning very little for four years,” Lebona says.

“When the opportunity to go and dig for gold for 12 months came, I was more than happy to go.”

Like many of his peers in the business, his handlers bribed mine security guards for his gang to gain access into the shaft and to use the cage to go down.

It normally costs R35 000 to sink a single illegal miner.

“We mixed with other mineworkers in the same cage, which carried about 100 people. They knew who we were because some of them were on our handlers’ payroll and were responsible to get our gold out of the mine,” he said.

“They sold us their oxygen equipment, which cost R2 500. They would even charge us a fee for directions. We threatened those that tried to snitch on us.”

Life underground includes long hours of hard labour with limited ventilation and avoiding stepping on dead illegal miners who either lost their lives through falls, illness or turf wars.

Sometimes a walk between stations can take hours.

But life underground is not always this gloomy.

“The handlers provide us with money and food by bribing mineworkers. We had everything down there. We even ate better than ordinary people on the surface, ” Lebona says.

“There are bottlestores and prostitutes down there. Prostitutes are normally female mineworkers who want to make an extra buck.

“We ’ d pay R1 500 for a round of sex and R3 000 if we don’t use a condom.”

He did zama zama work for 10 years, which he used to support his four children and family. He also bought himself a car. “I stopped in January last year because of the dangers of the work. ”

Lebona is now part of anti-zama zama group that is setting up a company to buy old mines and hire illegal miners to work in them.

“We want to formalise the whole thing because some of the companies left some gold behind,” he says.