SAfrica plans mines audit after 3,200 miners rescued
05 Oct 2007 13:11:29 GMT Source: Reuters
By James Macharia JOHANNESBURG, Oct 5 (Reuters) - South Africa plans a maintenance audit at its mines after 3,200 trapped miners had to be rescued from a gold shaft, the Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica said on Friday. Sonjica said South African President Thabo Mbeki had spoken to her to launch the audit, but she was unclear on its timing or if it would cover all mines. "In terms of reducing the number of accidents, maintenance is a low-hanging fruit. It should be done by yesterday," she told media after a mines safety summit held in Johannesburg. "The president wants an audit of all mines. I talked to him on the phone about this and we are yet to go into detail, which I will share with you later." She said private sector experts would be hired to help conduct the review in a country that is home to some of the world's deepest mines. Some 200 mine workers were killed in accidents last year. Late on Thursday, the last of the 3,200 miners trapped deep in Harmony Gold's <HARJ.J> Elandsrand mine outside Johannesburg walked out of the mine. They were stuck for more than 24-hours when a pipe broke off and hurtled down the shaft, severing an electricity cable to the mine's main lift. Sonjica, who ordered the Carletonville operation be shut down for six weeks, said a probe into the cause of the accident would start on Monday. "I am hoping it will not take more than a month," Sonjica said. "At Elandsrand, something went very wrong with the maintenance. If the worst could have happened, we could have lost more than 3,000 people only because their only means of transport was not well-maintained." Asked if maintenance had been identified as the reason for the accident, Sonjica told Reuters: "That is my suspicion. We have not yet put them (management) on the spot to confess." Sonjica said her department shared some of the blame for some accidents, because it had a skills shortage of staff to conduct regular inspections. She said her department's inspections tended to be "reactionary rather than proactive". Asked to respond to Sonjica's comments on a lack of maintenance being the most likely cause of the accident, Harmony's acting Chief Executive Officer Graham Briggs told Reuters the investigation would reveal all. "We do regular maintenance of our shafts and we furthermore inspect our shafts weekly," he said. "The last inspection of this particular shaft took place on Saturday." The probe will be done by Harmony and officials from Sonjica's department. Briggs said it was a relief to have the workers above ground. "It will be a quiet weekend with their families away from work," he said.
