‘Manganism victims’ losing hope
● Life is so hopeless for former Assmang worker Simon Miya that he spends his days thinking about his final resting place.
The 60-year-old father of eight from Cato Ridge, outside Durban, who worked as a controller at Assmang’s manganese smelter, was diagnosed with manganese poisoning in 2006 by a Pietermaritzburg specialist who advised him not to return to work.
Miya sought help because he was forgetful and shaking, had a headache and loss of balance, and had become aggressive.
When he broke the news to his wife, Thandi, she suffered a heart attack.
“My condition is becoming worse. I have lost hope and I have resigned myself to the fact since some of my former fellow workers have died I am also destined to the grave,” said Miya this week.
He is one of five survivors out of 10 alleged manganese poisoning victims from Assmang’s Cato Ridge factory who have been waiting 10 years for a decision on whether the company should be prosecuted for negligence and culpable homicide.
The factory is partly owned by mining magnate Patrice Motsepe’s JSElisted African Rainbow Minerals.
Despite a public inquiry by the Department of Labour into about 40 cases of manganese poisoning at the factory, the NPA is yet to make a decision.
KwaZulu-Natal NPA head Moipone Noko said: “As far as we’re concerned, investigations are still incomplete. However, we will make a decision based on what we have if the SAPS is not in a position to conduct further investigations as instructed by us.”
Noko said the NPA had sent numerous queries to the police in respect of the manganese poisoning and a docket was again resubmitted to police in about August 2017, but a number of queries were not attended to. But KwaZulu-Natal Hawks spokesman Captain Simphiwe Mhlongo said all NPA queries had been attended to and the docket was with the authority for a decision. In 2006, 10 Assmang employees were permanently disabled after alleged exposure to high levels of toxic manganese dust. Two years later, eight of their colleagues died in a furnace explosion at the factory.
Manganism, a crippling condition similar to Parkinson’s disease, is incurable and leaves victims unable to work.
Assmang has refused to accept liability for either the alleged manganese poisoning or the furnace explosion.
In a new twist, the High Court in Pietermaritzburg recently ruled in favour of a psychologist who sued the company for ruining her professional life after she diagnosed some of the workers referred to her by Assmang as having manganese poisoning.
Linda Holden, the psychologist, is now seeking damages from Assmang after the company laid a complaint against her with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. The HPCSA dismissed the complaint on the grounds that Holden had acted within the scope of her practice.
ARM head of investor relations Jongisa Magagula said Assmang’s complaint to the HPCSA was to the effect that as a psychologist, Holden was not qualified to make the diagnosis she made. Assmang was appealing the court’s decision. Another worker, Brian Anderson, 65, attempted suicide twice after he was fired by Assmang because of incapacity after 35 years’ service.