Mining stakeholders re-commit to improving mine health and safety
Stakeholders from the mining industry met at a two day Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) summit, ending on 18 November 2016, to review the state of health and safety in the sector as well as progress made thus far in achieving the 2014 OHS set milestones in pursuant of zero harm in the mining industry.
The milestones set during the 2014 summit included that:
- For Occupational Safety: up to December 2016, there will be 20% reduction in Serious Injuries per year, from January 2017, 20% reduction in Lost Time Injuries per year and up to December 2016, 20% reduction in Serious Injuries per year.
- For Occupational Health: milestones set were that by December 2024, 95% of all exposure measurement results will be below the milestone level for respirable crystalline silica of 0.05 mg/m3, for coal dust respirable particulate of 1.5 mg/m3 (<5% crystalline silica) and for platinum dust respirable particulate of 1.5 mg/m3 (<5% crystalline silica).
- By December 2024, the TB incidence rate should be at or below the National TB incident rate and 100% of employees should be offered HIV Counseling and testing (HCT) annually with all eligible employees linked to an Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) programme as per the National Strategic Plan (NSP).
- By December 2020 there will be 100% implementation of the Culture Transformation Framework.
Tripartite stakeholders present at the summit recommited themselves to achieving Zero Harm in the South African mining industry and further pledged to improve the following declared actions:- tripartite visible felt leadership, trust deficit, communication, empowerment of supervisors and employee and also conduct annual company health and safety days.
The department continues to call for further cooperation from all stakeholders in the sector, particularly as this year has been a challenging year on mine health and safety in terms of accidents and fatalities.
For further media enquiries, contact:
Masanda Peter
Cell: 071 193 9995
E-mail: mpeter@mhsc.org.za
