Families of deceased Sibanye miners to get support

The embattled Sibanye-Stillwater, which this year alone suffered a spate of safety incidents that left 12 mine workers dead, has undertaken to provide support to bereaved families, which includes children’s education from school through university, said chief executive officer Neal Froneman.

SA’s third largest producer of platinum and palladium, also featuring among the world’s top gold producing companies, is still counting the cost of losing employees in two unrelated incidents at the company’s Masakhane shaft in Driefontein and later at Kloof Ikamva in Westonaria.

Froneman, who has committed to work with trade unions and other key stakeholders in the mining industry to avert the recurrence of safety incidents at Sibanye-Stillwater operations, said the families would each receive:

• Lump sum compensation.
• Funeral cover costs, which include transport for family and employees.
• Pension or provident fund cover.
• Death and Rand Mutual cover in various amounts.
• Housing or house renovations.
• Replacement employment to a member of the family.
• Ongoing trauma counselling.

He said Sibanye-Stillwater was “fully investigating the safety incidents” together with the department of mineral resources and trade union representatives “in order to identify the root causes”.

Froneman said the investigation would afford the company “an opportunity to determine what needs to be done differently to avoid safety incidents”.

“Where the safety incidents indicate that it would not be safe to mine until changes have been made, operations will be suspended until it is safe to resume in line with good practice and the requirements of safety legislation,” he said.

Asked what his company would do to repair relations with labour following the tragedy, he responded: “A tripartite summit involving all unions and the department was held in May, with a follow up planned to take place this month.

“Through constructive engagement, we concluded a safety pledge that all stakeholders subscribed to. We consider this to be a good basis on which to proceed.”

He expressed being “disappointed that some ill-informed, misleading and even untrue statements that have been made in public by certain stakeholders” following the two incidents.

Froneman said they created “a wrong impression and even falsely accuse the company of wrong-doing”.

“While I cannot go into the details, we are engaging with those parties to address the issues that have been raised,” Froneman said.

ALSO READ: Sibanye-Stillwater mine accident raises major concerns about safety in SA mines – Solidarity

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