400 EMASWATI MINERS CAN RETURN TO S. AFRICA, BUT ...

MBABANE – Over 400 mine-workers who came back home after the announcement of the full lockdown in South Africa, are expected to report for work in the neighbouring country from today, but this will be an impossibility.

 It might take longer for local miners employed in South Africa to get back to work as the mining sector has resumed operations in the eased level three lockdown.

Overwhelmed quarantine centres in South Africa are the primary reason for the delay in the return process of locals to the neighbouring country.
This was revealed by Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Thuli Dladla, who noted though, that unlike before, the level that South Africa was in now made it less difficult to get to the neighbouring country.

Chaired

The minister said they convened a meeting which was chaired by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and present were representatives from the Ministries of Education and Training, Labour and Social Security, and her ministry, to look into their roles in facilitating the return of the miners to SA.

“As a ministry, we concluded that the repatriation was not our (ministry of Foreign Affairs) assignment alone, but the others have a role to play as well. What the other ministries do is give us a list of the people who wish to go to South Africa, either for school or work purposes, and we take the list to South Africa at Delco, the International Relations office. It is the Delco office that then takes the list to the relevant structures and they then give us feedback on when the people can actually come,” she submitted.

The minister said currently, the quarantine centres in South Africa were overwhelmed, which was slowing down the process.
“The miners will go back to work, but only when South Africa has organised the quarantine centres for them. EmaSwati should be patient in these situations because we don’t want to be seen as distracting the current operational processes in South Africa. We can promise that they will definitely be allowed back to work and school,” she submitted.

Meanwhile, the Minerals Council in South Africa said last Friday that the mining industry was working with government to get mineworkers from neighbouring countries back to work as the national lockdown had been eased to level three.

Senior Executive for Environment, Health and Legacies, Nikisi Lesufi, said the council was working with the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure to facilitate the return of nearly 10 000 employees from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, as reported in Moneyweb.

Submitting

“We have a list of 9 500 workers from neighbouring countries who are supposed to have come back from Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Eswatini and Zimbabwe. We are submitting all the details of the transport logistics, and quarantine facilities. The list is to be finalised tomorrow,” Lesufi said.
Thuthula Balfour, the council’s head of health, said 384 mineworkers had tested positive for COVID-19. Balfour said 216 of the affected miners worked in the gold sector. “We have ended up with more infections in the gold sector because of outbreaks,” Balfour said.

The government announced that all deep mining operations were expected to ramp-up to full capacity under level three of the lockdown, bringing the mining industry to full capacity of production. However, Gold Fields spokesperson Sven Lunsche said reaching 100 per cent capacity and bringing back 100 per cent of employees would be challenging, according to Moneyweb

Lunsche said bringing back the SADC nationals, who constituted 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the industry’s workforce, would not be easy. He said the industry would take time to reach maximum production as returning employees needed to get tested before entering the mining premises.

“That alone will take a couple of weeks before we are at full capacity again,” Lunsche said. “I suspect it is going to be a month before we reach full capacity from June 1, and it might even be later than that,” he was quoted by the online publication.

Gold Fields operates the South Deep mine in Westonaria, which has managed to ramp its operations up to 50 per cent after being in care and maintenance for three weeks from the start of the lockdown up to April 18. The mine had one returning employee testing positive for COVID-19. Sibanye-Stillwater spokesperson, James Wellsted, said the company had not yet recalled all employees, as reported by Moneyweb.

Situation

“We have a situation where we have migrant-sending provinces like the Eastern Cape. So far we have not called back employees from those labour sending areas.
“We have to strike a balance by saying do we bring our people to work immediately or do we have a slower approach to the return of employees,” Wellsted was quoted saying.

Council Chief Executive Roger Baxter said, according to Moneyweb, some coal mines were already operating at 90 per cent capacity because they were able to operate for the duration of the lockdown. Baxter said collieries that supplied Eskom and oil refineries were allowed to operate at full capacity under level five of the lockdown.

He said this was extended to open cast mines under level four. “We must also recognise that for some operations on the coal side, we are limited to the availability of transport. However, it (the ability to reach full capacity) is going to be different from commodity to commodity,” said Baxter.

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