South African Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane on Friday said that government would not issue a Section 54 work stoppage certificate to Beatrix gold mine in the Free State, where hundreds of workers were trapped underground for two nights.
Sibanye-Stillwater, the owner of the mine, confirmed that 955 workers were rescued unharmed at its Beatrix Shaft 3 in the early hours of Friday after a power cut affected an elevator to bring them up following a severe storm on Wednesday night.
Briefing the media after a three-hour meeting with mine management and trade unions, Zwane said that government would rather ensure that due process was followed in investigating the incident before allowing operations to resume and for workers to return underground.
"We have agreed with everybody in the meeting that we are going to follow due processes to ensure the safety of everybody and allow the mine to operate once we have followed those processes. I do not want to speculate on the cause of this incident as a responsible leader," Zwane said.
"We will be investigating issues of negligence, generator [faiIure], infrastructure and any other issue we deem fit. But until we have facts, we cannot issue a Section 54 because we know there was a storm in the area. We don't want to close these mines perpetually."
Zwane said the mine had taken a correct decision by not rescuing the workers through an alternative escape route because that route contained toxic gasses and "high methane levels".
Zwane also said that the mine would remain temporarily closed until an investigation by the mineral resources' inspectorate is complete, which might take up a day or up to four days.
Sibanye-Stillwater had already taken a decision to halt operations at the 2.2km depth mine until Monday to allow workers to receive trauma counselling and recover fully.
- African News Agency (ANA
