‘Not enough done for mining communities’

Pretoria - Government departments have conceded to the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) that they haven’t done enough to attend to crucial issues facing the country’s mining communities.

The departments for Planning and Evaluation, Water and Sanitation, Health and Human Settlements said yesterday they had tried to tackle socio-economic issues, but there were still vast challenges such as housing.

“Areas such as Madibeng and Rustenburg have seen considerable population growth because of mining. That growth will have an adverse effect on infrastructure,” said Rudi Dicks from the Department of Planning and Evaluation.

He was speaking at the SAHRC’s second day of hearings into the underlying socio-economic challenges affecting mining communities.

There was a lack of inter-departmental understanding on some issues caused by policy clashes in the various departments that had to deal with these communities, he said.

Human Settlements said it was grappling with the integration of human settlements in mining communities. “We would like to see the broader integration on infrastructure and economic development. At the moment we do not have that. The department is intervening in 22 mining towns and trying to get proper human settlements,” said a representative.

The Department of Health’s Dr Barry Kistnasamy, who works in the compensation fund division, said his department was sitting with about 200 000 unclaimed payments amounting to billions of rand.

The reason for this high number could be attributed to the fact that most claimants were former mineworkers from across southern Africa and not aware of these funds.

Kistnasamy said his department had fostered relationships with mining companies in an attempt to raise awareness among workers.

It also opened stations in some mining areas to document employees. The hearings are a result of numerous complaints from communities of their dire living conditions and difficulties finding jobs.

PRETORIA NEWS