ActionSA vows to get Lily Mine reopened

ActionSA vowed to continue fighting for the reopening of the closed Lily Mine in Louisville, which would see the retrieval of the three employees’ bodies that had been trapped underground since 2016, the party’s president, Herman Mashaba, said.

Addressing the masses, most of whom were clad in colourful ActionSA T-shirts, Mashaba said the matter was a cause for him to be angry.

“We have started and we are going to fight until the end. This matter angers me a lot. How can government not intervene to retrieve the employees for this long a period? How can this government not do something to get this mine reopened in order to provide jobs to the people? We have about 12 million unemployed people, and that means life is difficult,” Mashaba said.

The gathering, organised by ActionSA, was a prayer day marking the seventh year since Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi and Solomon Nyirenda had tragically sunk away in a container, about 70m underground, when the mine collapsed. The families and other employees have since erected a campsite on the mine to put pressure on authorities to retrieve the trio.

“We are human beings and we want to bury our loved ones if they happened to die, so there’s closure. How come this government of the day is so quiet and does nothing about these souls? ActionSA is here to hold hands with you, family and friends and employees of the mine, to fight for correction of this situation,” Mashaba said.

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“The mine could have been reopened and provide the much-needed jobs to South Africans if Vantage Goldfields did not use delaying tactics that prevented the ever-ready Arqomanzi from resuscitating the mine.

“Arqomanzi has a plan and has the money to retrieve the souls, reopen the mine and pay its debtors. Why is this not prioritised?” asked Mashaba.

Freddy Arendse of the Siyakhula Sisonkhe Corporation, which owns Arqomanzi, assured the attendees and other stakeholders at the prayer meeting they have put together a R12.5m plan to reopen the mine, and that this was readily available.

“If Vantage Goldfields were not putting stumbling blocks in its way using courts, Arqomanzi would immediately reopen the mine,” he said. “We have the money and the plan. We are committed to reopen the mine and retrieve the three employees.

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“Arqomanzi has already paid all the employees part of the money owed to them in order to alleviate their sufferings,” Arendse said as the employees raised hands to indicate that this was true. “About R13m has gone into this part payment.”

“If the only remaining legal hurdle could be removed in court in March, the floodgates to reopen the mine would open and real work would commence,” the legal representative of ActionSA, Mike Shackleton, said.