EFF calls for impoverished miners probe
A commission of inquiry must be instituted to probe circumstance that led to the dismissal of workers at Aquarius’s Rustenburg mine.
|||Rustenburg - A commission of inquiry must be instituted to probe circumstance that led to the dismissal of workers at Aquarius Platinum Mine in Kroondal near Rustenburg, Economic Freedom Fighters MP Primrose Sonti said on Thursday.
“A commission must investigate how you were dismissed. The way it appears there is something they [the company] are hiding. They have managed to keep it under a tight lid for at least six years,” she said.
Sonti was speaking to the former mineworkers at a hostel that had been their home since they were fired in 2009 for embarking on an unprotected strike.
The EFF MP told the former mineworkers her party had met with Aquarius and proposed that the company assist the former workers to go home to be with their families this Christmas holidays.
“We expect the company to give us an answer on the proposal this Friday. We do not know the answer yet but, all we want is for you to have money in your pocket to go home,” said Sonti.
The impoverished former mineworkers survive by eating cats, jackals, rats, hares and wild spinach.
When Sonti visited the hostel, two men lay ill in their beds.
More than 155 former mineworkers were reported to have died since 2009. “I want you to go home and see your families, you have been away from them for too long. Some of you are sick and no one is taking care of you,” she said.
A delegation from the Mozambican embassy was also at the hostel on Thursday, but declined to elaborate on their mission.
However, former mineworkers from Mozambique said the delegation was there to help them with passports and to make arrangements for those willing to go back home to do so.
The move caused some consternation among the mineworkers, when the delegation insisted on speaking to Mozambicans alone. Aquarius said in August, the men were former employees of Murray & Roberts Cementation (MRC) and not Aquarius.
“There is no direct relationship between Aquarius and the former employees of Murray & Roberts Cementation. [MRC] had been contracted to undertake Aquarius mining function. This contract was terminated in June 2012 when the mining operations converted to owner-mining,” said Charmane Russell on behalf of Aquarius, at the time.
She said they were dismissed in September 2009 following unprotected strike action, and all actions taken by Aquarius' contractor were undertaken in line with the Labour Relations Act, and this has been repeatedly upheld by the CCMA and the Labour Court.
“The case of unfair dismissal before the Labour Court was dismissed in December 2014,” she said.
MRC collaborated Aquarius' sentiments, saying it last employed these workers in 2012. For their part, the dismissed mineworkers expect the matter to go back to court.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY