Sibanye to restart operations at Cooke on July 3

Sibanye Gold will restart operations at the group’s Cooke shafts on July 3 following the end of an unprotected strike which started on June 6 and has cost Sibanye some R160m in lost revenues from about 300kg of planned gold output which was not produced.

According to Sibanye’s gold division CEO Wayne Robinson, “the Cooke operations have been incurring financial losses and have been under strategic review for some time. The additional losses incurred due to this strike further impact the economic viability of these operations.”

The strike started after a prohibition on employees taking food underground was implemented in order to prevent food being provided to illegal miners by mine employees. Sibanye had previously agreed on this prohibition with the majority union at Cooke.

Robinson commented that, “these operations have failed to meet production targets for some time with illegal mining and employee collusion likely to have played a meaningful role in this underperformance. “

He added that, year-to-date, 77 employees had been arrested for assisting illegal miners while 472 illegal miners have surfaced from underground and been arrested since the prohibition on food being taken underground was enforced.

Robinson added “the arrest of 472 illegal miners at the Cooke Operations which are not dormant but active, operating mines indicates the extent of the illegal mining activities and the risks that this growing criminal activity poses to our operations, employees and communities.”

Since Sibanye obtained a court interdict against the illegal strike on June 8 the dismissal of 99 employees has been upheld while 407 employees have been placed on final warnings – and have forfeited their salaries – and another 869 have forfeited annual leave in order to compensate for “non-productive shifts”.