JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Efficient communication with migrant mineworkers in Southern Africa, regarding social security benefits, poses a significant challenge to the Southern Africa Trust (SAT) and the Southern Africa Miners’ Association (Sama), as former mineworkers had insufficient access to information on administrative formalities and procedures to submit claims for unpaid pension, provident fund and service-award benefits.

Sama said on Thursday that most of the former mineworkers and dependants of deceased miners were not financially resourced to pursue their benefits, while the low literacy level of these former miners and dependants also worked to their disadvantage.

In addition, most miners were not aware of the exact benefits owed to them, or their rights to make claims.

Sama hosted a regional dialogue in February last year, where strong calls were made for urgent payout action in the interests of regional poverty eradication.

Beneficiary tracing body Teba representative Jose Carim told delegates on Thursday that there had been certain compulsory deferred payments, which could only be accessed in the miner’s country of origin. The only two countries that this applied to were Mozambique and Lesotho, as other Southern African countries had scrapped deferred payment.

He added that R376-million was deferred in one year, while cash remittances of R98-million reverted back to Lesotho.

BRIDGING THE GAP

To bridge the communication gap, the SAT had introduced a brochure in five languages, including Sesotho, Siswati, Portuguese, English and Zulu.

The brochure, titled ‘Ensuring Access to Social Security Benefits and Workplace Compensation in the Mining Industry’, served as a directory of agencies and procedures, and aimed to provide access to accurate information of the seven compensation institutions.

Speaking at this year’s regional dialogue, titled ‘Portability of Social Security Benefits for Mineworkers in Southern Africa’, Association of Mozambican Mineworkers, or Amimo, president and member of Lesotho-based Sama Moises Uamusse pointed out that many mineworkers had also passed on or had been lost in the system.

Uamusse noted that through data collection, ex-miners could be traced more easily for compensation. In the four Sama-affiliated countries, six sites had been identified in Lesotho, five in Swaziland, nine in Mozambique and one in the Eastern Cape, “but we need to go nationwide”.

He added that there was also a need to expand to other countries that had migrant labour in South Africa, including Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

However, there had been some strides made in “finding” ex-miners.

“In Lesotho, 12 000 ex-miners and 400 widows, on behalf of their late husbands, have registered. In Mozambique, we registered 5 478 ex-miners and 598 widows, while in Swaziland we have brought together 1 243 ex-miners – 390 [of whose] data has been captured.

“In South Africa, we identified more than 8 700 ex-miners, of which 2 000 were paid by the MPF. Remember that this registration process is still ongoing.”

Meanwhile, Department of Health compensation commissioner Barry Kistnasamy, who had been in this guise since January, noted that there was still a lot of work to be done in terms of paying health-related compensation claims, as he “inherited a completely collapsed system” that would take strenuous grafting to fix.

“There are 200 000 files in the [possession of the] Compensation Commissioner for Occupational Diseases that have not been paid. There are 700 000 in the Medical Bureau for Occupational Diseases that have not been processed by the certification committee.

“However, we have made commitments to, from April, pay a claim within three months. We hope to clear all claims in a year’s time,” he advised.

WAY FORWARD
Uamusse noted that Sama still faced several challenges, including delays and double taxation on grant transfers from Lesotho to national offices.

Further, the association also had to deal with the absence of identity documents of late husbands or ex-miners that provided proof that they worked at mines, most miners not having industry card numbers, and the exiguity of mapping grants hindering the coverage of miner communities. A lack of transport and missing information of ex-miners, particularly before 1989, before the formation of the MPF, also posed challenges, as well as miners not knowing which funds they had contributed to.

He added that it was necessary to diarise the reconciliation of information gathered by Sama and the funds, as well as build a task team to monitor this, while conducting more research on the vulnerability created by the delay of funds disbursement.