Major ruling on work accidents gives hope to manganese victims
JACOBUS “Donny” du Plessis has been in and out of hospital with a swollen stomach, scrotum and feet since he was diagnosed with manganism nine years ago.
Du Plessis, 52, who played club rugby until he was 35, suffers from memory loss, has become moody and has a short concentration span.
“He is constantly in and out of hospital,” his wife, Heather, said this week.
“We don’t have a normal life. I don’t have a husband because he can’t fulfil his duties as a husband.”
The couple were speaking to the Sunday Times from Mediclinic Pietermaritzburg, where Du Plessis has been admitted repeatedly.
Said Du Plessis: “If it’s not the liver, it’s the heart, and if it’s not the heart, then it’s the kidneys. My body is swollen . . . My whole nervous system has broken down.”
Du Plessis was among 10 employees who were disabled in 2006 after alleged exposure to high levels of toxic manganese dust at the Assmang ferromanganese smelter, partly owned by mining magnate Patrice Mot- sepe. Three of them have since died.
Two years later, another six of their colleagues died in a furnace explosion at the same plant in Cato Ridge, outside Durban, which was caused by a recurring water leak.
A commission of inquiry was held into both the alleged poisoning and the explosion, but the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has yet to decide whether the multibillion-rand company should be prosecuted for negligence and culpable homicide.
Assmang mines manganese, iron and chrome and produces metal alloys. It is jointly owned by Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals and the Assore Group.
Compensation negotiations broke down after the company refused to accept liability for either the alleged poisoning or the furnace explosion.
Assmang maintains that in terms of the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act of 1993 it is not obliged to pay damages to the former workers.
But there could be light at the end of the tunnel for the surviving manganese poisoning victims and the families of the dead workers.
In a ground-breaking ruling last month, the High Court in Pretoria ruled in favour of the families of 13 people killed six years ago in a blaze at a printing works owned by Paarl Print factory. The court’s ruling forces the Department of Labour to release the report of its inquiry, whose findings were never made public.
The court further ordered that in future, interested parties may receive copies of reports on workplace accidents.
Richard Spoor, a human rights lawyer representing the sick workers and the families of the dead in the Assmang case, said his clients would use the Paarl Print ruling to force the Department of Labour to release the commission of inquiry report on the 2006 manganese exposure and the 2008 blast.
As in the Paarl Print case, the department has refused to hand over the reports on manganese poisoning and the furnace blast at Assmang.
“Now we can ask for the findings in the manganese case and furnace explosion at Assmang,” said Spoor.
KwaZulu-Natal’s director of public prosecutions, Advocate Moipone Noko, said she could not make a decision based on a commission of inquiry.
“Boxes of evidence were delivered to this office by the de- partment in 2012. We instructed that a case be opened by them [with the police] for an investigation to be done,” she said.
The investigation, she said, could not be completed because it had taken a long time for the complainants to consent to their medical records being released.
“The doctors have not yet made affidavits linking the illness to the manganese poisoning. Although medical records were submitted in a box, we cannot draw conclusions from those,” she said.
But Noko’s version was dismissed as a “lie” and a “coverup” by Du Plessis and another former Assmang worker, Brian Anderson, 63, who was also diagnosed with chronic manganism in 2006.
Said Anderson: “It’s all nonsense. I know the specialists are waiting for the NPA to contact them, but they have never been contacted.
“Doctors asked us to give permission, but the NPA never contacted them.”
Manganism, a crippling condition similar to Parkinson’s disease, is incurable and leaves victims, who also suffer seizures, unable to work. It can lead to brain damage and other serious health problems.