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Safety practices must be shared - Sietse vd Woude, Chamber of Mines
In an interview on Radio 2000 @ 18:00 on Wednesday, 17 October 2007
[miningmx.com] -- SOUTH African mining companies with good safety records had to share their practices with companies experiencing high fatality rates at their operations, said Chamber of Mines safety advisor, Sietse van der Woude.
"We have appointed a team that will work at identifying those practices and look at how to go about implementing them in other mines, so we are making an investment towards that," said Van der Woude.
Van der Woude's comments come after South African mining companies have witnessed a series of deaths at their mines.
Speaking on the Moneyweb Power Hour, a week-nightly radio broadcast, Van der Woude said the chamber shared the concern of all stakeholders over safety, but it was confident that the situation would improve.
"There are a number of initiatives that we are currently implementing and I am confident that we will get it right; we will
get better. The president’s decision to have the mines audited, our own initiatives and the pressure from the unions will collectively contribute towards making mines safe," said Van der Woude.
The Chamber had started an initiative to measure seismic events. "So there would be improvements in the long term," he said.
The Chamber had a good relationship with the country's mineworkers unions.
"We obviously had different point of views when we negotiated wages but our relationship is solid as far as safe and health issues are concerned."
Commenting on government's decision to shut the Northam Platinum mine after one death, Van der Woude said: "The regulator has to do what it has to do because there had been no improvements in the mines. So you do really expect them to take a tough stance," he said.
It was encouraging to see every fatality being taken seriously. "In the past you would only hear about mine deaths if 10 or more people died but now even a
single fatality is taken seriously and that is a very good thing," said Van der Woude.
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