TSHWANE (miningweekly.com) – Mineral Resources Deputy Minister Godfrey Oliphant said on Monday that the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) was ensuring that the South African mining industry was a global leader in mine health and safety.

“Since 1994, the aims of the DMR have been that of strengthening laws within the mining industry to ensure that mineworkers are safe underground and striving for zero fatalities,” he said during a visit to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research- (CSIR-) managed fires and explosion test, training and research and development facility at Kloppersbos near Tshwane.

Addressing mineworkers from multinational mining company Anglo American at the facility, Oliphant mentioned that CSIR Kloppersbos remained one of the best facilities globally, which aimed to train mineworkers on safety and health. Owing to this, he noted that the DMR would be improving the facility in the near future to ensure that it provided more equipment and expertise to train mineworkers on safety.

“With all the initiatives brought forth by the department, we are hoping to make the mining environment safer. However, if mineworkers violate the laws set in place, the Acts passed into legislation become futile and defeat the purpose of driving towards zero fatality in the sector,” he stated.

Oliphant urged mineworkers to go beyond compliance when working underground in order for the sector to remain a global leader in mine safety and health.

Making reference to the transformation that the Mining Charter has been striving towards, he noted that the policies were continuously being considered and revisited by the DMR to ensure that future mining activities were safer than in the past.
According to the CSIR’s website, the Kloppersbos facility was established in 1987 to conduct research into the explosibility of South African coals and has been used to provide a full-scale surface test environment for the evaluation of underground explosion suppression systems; the flammability of conveyor belts; and dust suppression systems for continuous miners, besides others.