Derelict and Ownerless Mines (including the rehabilitation of asbestos mines): DMRE briefing

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Mineral Resources and Energy

17 November 2020
Chairperson: Mr S Luzipo (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

Audio: Derelict and Ownerless Mines (including the rehabilitation of asbestos mines): DMRE briefing

The Portfolio Committee met to be briefed by the Department Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) on its progress in dealing with the country’s derelict and ownerless mine sites, and the rehabilitation of asbestos mines. In a virtual meeting, the Department made a commitment that it would meet the deadlines it had set for the current financial year, but the activities of illegal miners (zama zamas) remained a problem.

The Department’s presentation covered the sealing of open shafts and holings, the challenges and strategies employed in dealing with illegal mining, the completed rehabilitation of asbestos mines, and the work opportunities created in the process. It gave a commitment to seal the remaining 26 mines in the third and fourth quarters.

The Committee wanted to know when the Department was going to seal the mine shafts in Malipsdrift and the dumps of asbestos that were still affecting people who were living in the area. It was concerned that the money that was being charged for prospecting rights was not enough to ensure that proper rehabilitation would be done. They asked if the Department had set a timeline to deal with the issue of the open Balmoral shaft, which had claimed the life of a child playing in the area, and stressed that it was a matter of urgency. What were their plans beyond fencing mines to protect them, as they were easy targets to illegal miners? The Committee wanted the Department to clarify whether the disabled were included in the employment opportunities created, who the beneficiaries of those opportunities were, and how much they earned.

The Committee commended the Department for the inclusion of women, youths and the disabled in their rehabilitation projects. It also expressed its appreciation for its successes in sealing shafts at derelict and ownerless mines, and in rehabilitating some asbestos mines.

Meeting report

Adv Thabo Mokoena, Director General (DG), Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), introduced the presentation on the derelict and ownerless mines, including asbestos mines. The Department was set to meet the deadlines in the current financial year as outlined in their Annual Performance Plan (APP). The declaration of the lockdown had had an impact on the developments. They remained optimistic that they would meet the deadline. Illegal miners known as zama-zamas remained a problem. They had involved law enforcement agencies to try and deal with that problem. They had created a system to track down the illegal miners, especially in the Witwatersrand area.

Derelict and ownerless mines

Mr Andries Moatshe, Acting Deputy Director General (ADDG): Mineral Policy and Promotions, DMRE, made the presentation on the derelict and ownerless mine sites, and the rehabilitation of asbestos mines. The presentation dealt with:

Sealing of open shafts/holings

In the previous financial year, the Department had sealed 61 dangerous shafts through Mintek and the Council for GeoScience (CGS). It had implemented a temporary measure to address Balmoral shaft since the family of a child who fell into the shaft had requested the Ekurhuleni Municipality to conduct the rituals. Although the municipality had made an undertaking to perform the rituals, this had not materialised yet.

Challenges

The declaration of the lockdown due to Covid-19 in March 2020 had had an impact on the achievement of quarterly targets. However, this had required the Department and its entities to review implementation plans in order to reflect forward planning. As such, the 2020/21 targets would still be achieved.

Illegal mining continued to pose a threat to the sealing of dangerous shafts/holings. The Van Ryn area in Gauteng province, where several shafts/holings had to be sealed, was populated with heavily armed illegal miners.

Strategies to deal with illegal mining

In the short-term, the Tactical Security company had been appointed to ensure the safety of officials during the sealing of the shafts/holings

For the medium and long term, the Department had engaged the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to devise a permanent solution to address this challenge. It was envisaged that the CSIR’s Cmore intelligence software implementation would be utilised, in collaboration with the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA)

Shafts/holings sealed

Mr Moatse said that shafts/holings were sealed at Makausi 1&2, the Knight Boksburg shafts and the Emandleni shaft.

2019/20 completed asbestos mines rehabilitated

Rehabilitation was completed for the Stratham asbestos project, the Steelpoort asbestos project, and the Msauli asbestos project.

During the second quarter of 2020, 14 dangerous shafts/holings hadbeen sealed. The remaining 26 would be completed in the third and fourth quarter.

Work opportunities

During the 2019/20 financial year, 187 work opportunities had been achieved. The target for April to September 2020 was 144, and 88 had been achieved.

Discussion

Ms C Phillips (DA) said she had visited three of the asbestos mines in the Malipsdrift area, and two were supposedly rehabilitated and one had not been rehabilitated at all. There were still open shafts in those mines as well, and if the Department was not aware of them, she wanted to make them aware. If they were aware, what were they going to do -- not only about the shafts, but the actual mine dumps of asbestos that were still there. There were people living there, and it was blowing into their houses daily. When they spoke to the medical staff in the area, they were told that they had a lot of deaths from what they referred to as pneumonia, but they suspected that it was not actually pneumonia, and were looking at asbestos causes.

Prospecting rights had been awarded to a company on the far west coast on 4 043 hectares, and they were charged only a R240 000 deposit for rehabilitation. She was very concerned that the money they charged companies before starting up was not enough to ensure that rehabilitation was done properly. Was there a formula they applied on how much people had to pay?

Mr S Kula (ANC) wanted to understand the Balmoral issue, since the Department had said they had wanted to deal with it as a matter of urgency. What was the matter of urgency? What was the timeline that they were giving the Portfolio Committee? They had spoken of a need to engage higher authority in the municipality of Ekurhuleni -- which was the mayor. How long had they been seeking to engage the Mayor? When were they planning to commence and close the engagement so that there could be movement on the issue of Balmoral, because there was a child and a family involved.  Such shafts were easy targets for zama-zamas. What were their plans beyond fencing to protect the mines from the zama-zamas. How far was their interaction with law enforcement agencies to make sure they dealt with the issue of heavily armed illegal miners in the area?

He commended the Department for successfully sealing some of the shafts and rehabilitating some of the asbestos mines. He asked how far they were in terms of engaging municipalities in dealing with mines in mountainous areas. The Department would be held accountable for the promise they made to seal 16 of the 26 remaining mines before December, and the other 10 before the financial year ended. He was impressed, and was sure that Committee Members were also impressed, by the number of women and youth that were employed in the rehabilitation space, and he called on other agencies to follow suit.

Ms V Malinga (ANC) appreciated the work that had been done up to that point. She commended the progress and said that the Department would be held accountable for the mines they said they would close before the financial year ended. She referred to the child who had fallen into the hole in Ekurhuleni whose family that wanted to perform the rituals, and asked if the family had been given the right to do rituals on the site, as black people usually went to collect the spirit of the deceased from where they died, and had that hole been sealed?

On the work opportunities given, the Department had said three asbestos mines were closed, one in Mpumalanga, but there were no work opportunities shown to have been given to Mpumalanga people. Why was that the case? How many of the three remaining asbestos mines needed to be sealed?

Ms P Madokwe (EFF) asked about the work opportunities, and said that the numbers were promising. She commended the Department for the representation of women and youth, she asked what their take home salary was. Were there any disabled people that had been assigned work and if so, what were those statistics? After the law was amended in 2002, how many of those mines were abandoned? What were the financial implications for the mining companies to ensure that rehabilitation was being done? How long had the Tactical Security Services company stayed there? What were the financial implications of them being there? Were locals being employed, or were they all outside people?

DMRE’s response

Mr Moatshe that the Department’s intention was to seal the Balmoral site as of yesterday, but they recognised that as Africans they would need to give the family a hearing. They had engaged them through the municipality, where a councillor and senior municipal officials had been in contact with the family concerned. As the Committee would be aware, such a problem could pose a real challenge in arriving at a decision. The last time he checked, there had been engagement with the entire extended family, but a decision had not been reached that was the reason for the delay. However, the municipality had granted permission to the family to conduct the rituals. It would be difficult to give a specific timeline, but they wanted to impress on the Ekurhuleni leadership involved the need for the community to fast track the process of conducting of the rituals, and immediately after the rituals had been conducted, the shafts would be sealed.

The fencing of the Balmoral mine was a temporary measure. The Department’s intention was to totally seal the mine off from access to communities, especially those nearby, and also to seal them so that the zama-zamas could not access them. The security company had worked hand in hand with the SAPS and where there was a need for arrest, they would come in -- they were part of the strategy.

He said there were no specific right holders to asbestos mines in mountainous areas, as the mines had been closed. What they did as a Department was to engage the leadership of the relevant municipality and the entity, and go to the area concerned to engage the chief. This would lead to the formation of a committee representing community members from all of the villages, and it would be responsible for the selection of sub-contractors, who would be mainly from the communities affected, to carry out the day to day rehabilitation.

Mr Reuben Masenya, Director: Mine Closure and Rehabilitation, DMRE, said that they had tried to document all the known mines in their database. He requested that the information be shared with them so that they could check from their database if the site in the Muldersdrift area as indicated had been captured. They had tried to document all the known sites in their database, but may have missed that one due to how previously there had been no thought given to leaving a better legacy for South Africans when they were doing mining, so the democratic government had sought to address that issue.

On the question about prospecting rights, they had created what they called financial provisioning, and calculations had been done. They had produced what they called a quantum for determining financial provisions that had been published in 2004. However, they realised that due to specific gaps in the government’s policy, not only in the DMRE, there were risk areas, so they had embarked on a discussion to have what they called a “one environmental system.” As part of this system, they had in the previous year published a new financial provision regulation which sought to address any gaps they had previously when they were implementing the quantum financial provision. They were hoping that it would address their issues. If they saw that there were still gaps, they would continue upgrading the formula to address the current issues. Previously, matters like acid mine drainage (AMD) had not been properly managed, and they were hoping that under the one environmental system, and with the interventions done, they would then be able to address them accordingly.

They were currently engaging and participating in the structures with the police and the NPA, as the illegal mining could not be dealt with internally. They were also amending the laws where they needed to be amended. Their discussions in those forums sought to strengthen the law to make sure that any perpetrators who were identified would be better dealt with. When they went to a site, they made sure they did not end up with a Marikana situation, as the illegal miners were heavily armed. They were taking the necessary approach that would support the law. Police were assisting them before they even sent in the Tactical Security company. The police would make sure they flushed out the illegal miners, and then the security company would take over, ensure the site was secured, and then the sealing would take place. They then used the Cmore approach to try and restrict the movement of illegal miners and prevent them from trying to dig another hole somewhere else. Cmore was used in rhino poaching and was successful, so they had also adopted it. 

At the Msauli asbestos mine, they had had problems with the contractor and the contract had been cancelled, and they got another contractor to work. It was unfortunate the contractor had left before they could finish because they had some financial problems. They had had to acquire another contractor, but it was not at the expense of the state. They still had money left because when they managed their projects, they made sure they tracked the budget and paid only for work completed.

Regarding the question of Ms Madokwe on the financial implications, they had determined 6 000 sites based on a pure desktop study. In their previous presentation, they had highlighted that there were some sites which did not require rehabilitation because after they were left for a long time, the grass grew and they rehabilitated themselves. They would share the financial implications once they had completed the calculations.

There were financial implications with regard to the security company. They had agreed with Mintek, because they did not want to duplicate spending the money that Treasury was providing for security. The role of Tactical Security was to accompany the design specialists when they visited sites to plan the rehabilitation and go to tender, and after police had flushed out illegal miners, they would remain on site for a week to make sure no one was buried alive underground. They would ensure the contractor was safe during the sealing process, and after the sealing process they would wait another two weeks for the curing to be completed. They would get the cost involved from the Tactical Security company, and share it with the Committee.

Mr Moatshe referred to the role which the SAPS  was playing, and said the DMRE found it appropriate that they be should be part of a broader committee that dealt with illicit mining in the country. Within the team, they had the Mineral Resources and Petroleum branch responsible for dealing with illegal mining from operational mines. The forum referred to was the one that continuously conducted operations together with the Department, as well as the SAPS.

Adv Mmadikeledi Malebe, Deputy Director General: Mineral Regulation, DMRE, responded to the question about prospecting rights, where they charged R250 000 for the financial provision. She explained that there was a difference between a mining right and a prospecting right -- prospecting rights were going to have minimal disruption on the earth. The R250 000 at the time of assessment and according to the formula was adequate because it was just for prospecting, and not for mining.  For mining involving the same company, they had a provision of about R15.2 million to cover the bigger area of the mining right.

Mr Mokoena said that the Department had taken note of the issues raised by the Members, and the emphasis that had been put on the matter of urgency. They would make sure that they put their plan in place, and would also fulfil the commitment that they had made on completing the remaining mines.

Further discussion

The Chairperson said the Committee needed to know what the Department was dealing with, so that when they went on oversight, they had a good idea of the main challenges they faced with derelict and ownerless mines and asbestos mines. He wished he could get a sense of what the quantum cost of the project was. Was there willingness among those who were still active in the industry to rehabilitate the derelict and ownerless mines?

He was worried because their annual performance plans and targets indicated uncertainty because of the continuing budget cuts, and the associated risks. What should be the criteria dealing with these mines, and the quantum cost? If there were 6 000 derelict and ownerless mines, how far back had they started dealing with them? How would the criteria have been determined, taking into account factors such as size and the level of danger?  Unfortunately, they had never seen those criteria, or a plan that would indicate that of the 6 000 mines involved, they had managed to deal with about 1 000. That was the issue.

At times, annual targets were affected because one had to respond based on the circumstances, and therefore one would have to prioritise and adjust the targets, but this was difficult if one did not know what the overall total of the cost of the exercise was. Although they understood the asbestos mines issue, the truth of the matter was that at the time, let alone having stopped the mining of asbestos, they were not supposed to be in existence. They had to be on the priority list of what had to be done, based on the danger they posed to humans and nature.

He requested that the Department forward the information of the mines that were left open to the secretariat, and the Committee should be reminded the following week when they dealt with the minutes that they had done that. The secretary would show them the information, and then they would send it to the Director General’s office. When the commitments were made in the Committee, they were made on behalf of the Director General and the Minister. The information on the 26 mines the Department had committed to have finished by the end of the financial year, would have to be supplied to the Committee.

Ms Malinga referred to the incident of the child who fell into the shaft, and asked how long ago it had occurred. How long did they intend to delay sealing the shaft before another incident happened? What if another child or another person fell into that hole while it was not sealed? Who had left the shaft open, as it was not mentioned on their presentation? Was there any penalty, or was the person charged?

Ms Madokwe asked what the average take home salary was, and for the statistics of disabled people who were employed. Referring to the contractor who had left, she wanted to know why, and what the implications were.,

DMRE’s response

Mr Moatshe said after they had identified that they had 6 000 derelict and ownerless (D&O) mines, one of responsibilities that the council had to do was to identify the prevalence of any minerals left at that site. If it was found that there was a certain percentage of raw materials in those mines, these would be allowed to be acquired by the applicants or new mine rights holders, who would then take over the responsibility for the rehabilitation of those mines.

Mr Masenya said the estimate of the quantum of costs for dealing with D&O mines was sitting at R49 billion. The asbestos mines were a priority, and the quantum for those mines was sitting at R2 billion. The state was not fully liable, as they were not only rehabilitating but also looking at the potential for retaining some mines or other developments that would promote the local economy. The one expense that they were sure the state had to incur was the R2 billion. The mining company had been engaged, and they had indicated they were prepared to assist.

The Balmoral shaft issue was something that did not sit well with South Africans, and the Department was engaging with the municipality. The child had fallen into the shaft two to three years ago. There had been engagements with the municipality, and they were thinking of approaching the mayor to resolve whatever challenges Ekurhuleni was facing. They could not seal it, because the family had to perform the rituals first, so they had erected a temporary fence to prevent anyone from accessing the area, and also to allow the municipality enough time to work with the family and councillor to deal with the ritual part. As soon as they were done with the ritual, the Department was ready to move in. It would not take them long to seal the site. They would look into the batch of other sites that were going to be sealed, and include Balmoral among those that were going to go for tender, depending on when the matter would be resolved.

Regarding the people who had been responsible for closing the shaft, it had been sealed by the previous owner in the 1950s. The material they used had not been able to provide a permanent solution. Due to excessive rain and floods, it had caved in and swallowed the seal. Immediately after the rains had stopped, the children had played in the area and the child had fallen. The company had done something in line with what was required then by the law. It now the responsibility of the Department, as the current laws could not be implemented for the previous mistakes. 

The Department tried by all means to insist that disabled people should also be appointed, and would indicate the number that they wanted, but it was not involved in the employing -- they left that to the municipality, the community, and the tribal council together with the council. They motivated them to include disabled people.

The average salary for those they employed was R24 per hour, amounting to R4 300 a month for unskilled labourers. They were supposed to have revised it, but had not done so due to covid-19. For others, they would pay the market-related salary. They had a stakeholder engagement meeting where all stakeholders were present to check and ensure that when they were not on site, the workers’ salaries were paid. They made sure that the salaries were paid, as they wanted to impart skills and teach them to be independent, even when the contract ended.

The contractor that left had signed an agreement, and they had expected them to finish. After they became bankrupt, they had pursued the legal route and had issued letters to make sure that they held those people accountable.

Mr Moatshe said the Department had taken note of the advice the Chairperson had provided, and they would correct matters accordingly. As part of ensuring compliance with Expanded Public Works Programme, they did include the disabled, the youth and women.

The Chairperson said that the DG should note that they would hold the Department accountable for the commitments that they had made.

Committee matters

The Chairperson requested that they review the minutes of 11 November 2020, and asked whether any corrections were needed.

Mr Kula said the minutes reflected that he was present, but in the parliamentary Committee attendance list, it reflected that he was not present.

The Chairperson said the Committee secretary would attend to that. He asked for a proposal to adopt the minutes.

Mr Kula proposed the adoption of the minutes.

Ms Philips seconded him.

The minutes were adopted

The Chairperson said they were doing their level best to finalise the report by 29 November, so they would deal with the revised report by the end of that week, and finalise it on Wednesday of the following week.

The meeting was adjourned.

 

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