Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
The dark heart of mining illegal gold
SHEREE BEGA speaks to artisanal miners about the hard, dangerous work they do to extract the precious metal from disused shafts
MARY NCUBE puts her small hands, yellowed from mining waste, to her face and closes her eyes briefly. It’s midday, the sun is blazing, and Ncube is exhausted.
But she knows time is money and she has to get back to work. The sacrifice is worth it for Ncube, who pockets about R600 a week.
It helps her youngest son, who is at medical school, back home in Zimbabwe.
The 52-year-old is part of a wellorganised team of about 300 men and women, some with babies strapped to their backs, illegally processing gold on a derelict plot of mining land on the West Rand.
She has been here since 6am and she will leave at 6pm as she does every day. The work is tough, monotonous. Her hands are thick with calluses as hard as the block of stone she uses to grind the ore, scavenged underground, on a slab of concrete, until it is as fine as flour, in the hunt for gold.
“What we do is dangerous and it’s deadly,” she says of the toxic dust that billows on the site, filling her lungs. “Once you start coughing, you cough for three months. But I have no option. I’m a dressmaker, but people aren’t buying any more.”
Ncube doesn’t dare tell her son how she pays for his tuition: “I’m afraid he won’t be able to study if he knows. That he will be scared for me. He thinks I’m a domestic worker.”
Across the country there are anywhere between 8 000 and 30 000 illegal miners extracting gold and diamonds from unsafe disused and abandoned mines – and thousands of others like Ncube, who are part of the gold-processing operations.
This is according to a new report, “Investigative Hearing Issues and Challenges in Relation to Unregulated Artisanal Underground and Surface Mining Activities in South Africa”, by the SA Human Rights Commission. It follows a formal inquiry undertaken in response to the increasing number of mine accidents and conflicts related to illegal mining, particularly in Gauteng.
The R6 billion illegal mining industry has become a “flourishing business” and “one that appears almost impossible to contain”, says the commission. The artisanal miners are poorly understood.
“Not all of these individuals and groups are involved in – or, if they are, began the activity with the intention of becoming involved in – criminal syndicates. Not all host-mining communities have the same views around artisanal mining activity.
“Not all are non-nationals, nor are they all ‘illegal immigrants’… The socio-economic situation in many parts of Gauteng has pushed many people into illegal mining.”
Artisanal mining is not legally recognised, despite its growth and the potential opportunities it offers, economically and socially, says the report.
The commission found that the partial closure of shafts with retrenchments, the absence of or inconsistent application of remediation measures after closure, and the failure to monitor social, labour and environmental management plans “contribute to dangerous and illegal activity on and around mines”.
Further research needed to be done to “address gaps and contradictions in legislation” and to look for opportunities where artisanal mining could allow marginalised people to “live off a day’s work”.
The Department of Trade and Industry agrees. In the report, it says illegal mining would be difficult to eradicate – and shouldn’t be.
“It provides economic benefits to the very poor… considering the levels of poverty, unemployment and deep inequalities.”
The Department of Labour, too, believes “artisanal mining could be explored as a complementary activity when a mine stops operating”, particularly when 145 000 jobs could be shed in the mining industry.
The commission believes there is an urgent need for programmes for artisanal mining communities to raise awareness about the human and environmental risks and, importantly, the dangers of mercury use.
“There needs to be health monitoring – this is costly. The dangers not only to the artisanal miners but to surrounding communities from mercury and radioactive materials, for example, are life-threatening and can be fatal.”
For Priscilla*, another Zimbabwean crusher, the risk is worth it. She toiled here while she was pregnant and her now-8-month-old daughter is growing up on this toxic playground.
“My daughter coughs a lot,” she says, trying to still her baby’s cries. “I’m worried about our health, but what can I do? There are no weekends, no Sundays or public holidays for us. If we don’t work, we don’t have food on the table.”
There is a rule – only men burrow underground, while women process the gold that will be sold to bulk buyers, exporters and international intermediaries and sent to Britain, China and Japan.
The commission found that, for the most part, artisanal miners were easy victims of organised crime.
“Their lack of business and market knowledge and a lack of finance can force them to sell to middlemen at low prices, perpetuating their poverty.
“Artisanal miners are kept in a poverty trap where their operations rarely graduate above subsistence and remain economically and environmentally unsustainable… Illegal artisanal mining will not go away of its own accord or through brute force. Lawlessness will mount if illegal mining is not confronted.”
The commission recommends that further research be undertaken to build the profiles of “zama-zamas”, as the miners are known, illegal gold trading syndicates and corrupt SAPS and security officials.
“There have been complaints that SAPS officers do not declare as evidence the product they confiscate from zama-zamas, that some officers receive payment to supply zamazamas with weapons.”
Legislation and government departments have failed to prevent criminal and dangerous practices. Some companies “warehouse” mines, rather than closing them down properly, as “a way to entice zamazamas into their closed sites to mine for product that is no longer financially viable to mine… and then collude with the zama-zamas to sell that product through legal channels, thereby evading tax”.
In the report, the Department of Mineral Resources says that in most cases, zama-zamas are linked to criminal elements in Gauteng. “This is something bigger than survivalist mining – even innovative suggestions will not solve this problem.”
The department has identified 221 holes and open shafts in Gauteng – the government has closed as many as 150 – but the biggest challenge is that illegal miners “will find another hole to enter”.
The national co-ordination strategic management team on illegal mining says that in surface illegal mining, there are often turf wars, with violence and deaths, among factions of zama-zamas.
With proper rehabilitation before mine closure, these problems would be limited. “If there is no gold left there for them to reap, there will be no problem of illegal miners.”
Samson* and his fellow artisanal miners, from Lesotho, Zimbawe and South Africa, are angry.
“It’s the police who are stealing from us,” Samson spits. “They raid here every day, and steal our money or our gold.” His team are “draining” their gold on one of several sloping tables. Black towels trap the gold dust, which glitters in the sunlight.
The men then “catch” the gold with mercury. The buyer “burns” it and weighs it to determine the price, according to the stock market.
“How much you get depends how hard you work,” shrugs Samson. “Sometimes, it’s big and we get R30 000. Sometimes R5 000. Sometimes a few hundred rand. We split it equally. When we run out of money, we go underground again.” It’s dark and treacherous work. “We can crawl and walk all the way from Roodepoort to Joburg underground through all the tunnels,” says Samson. “We’re not going into working mines. We’re going to find something useless that people have left behind. It’s not like we’re stealing.”
*Not their real names