Mineral Resources Deputy Minister Godfrey Oliphant said last week 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 to strengthen laws in the mining industry to ensure that mineworkers are safe underground and to strive for zero fatalities,” he added during his visit at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research- (CSIR-) managed fire 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 in health and safety. Owing to this, he noted that the DMR would improve the facility in the near future to ensure that it provided more equipment and expertise.

“With all the initiatives of 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 [the drive] towards zero fatality in the sector,” he stated.

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

In reference to the transformation towards which the Mining Charter had been striving, he noted that the DMR continually considered and revisited the policies
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 on the explosibility of South African coals and it 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.