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Financial Mail reports that as 200,000 mineworkers make their way across SA to join an equivalent number of their colleagues already back at work, the industry is fervently making preparations to mine amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Its efforts offer an ominous glimpse into the enormous challenge that lies ahead. Assuming that public health facilities may be overwhelmed at the peak of the pandemic, SA mining companies are converting old hostels and even renting church halls to prepare beds for infected workers. Sibanye-Stillwater has converted old hostels to quarantine facilities for 1,800 people at its platinum mines, and 800 at its gold mine. The company has also reserved 100 hospital beds for its workers. Impala Platinum has prepared 108 isolation beds, 777 quarantine beds and 319 hospital beds. Anglo American is bulking up capacity at its coal mines in Mpumalanga, where 85 new beds have been installed and 107 freed up. It has also recommissioned a TB ward to treat Covid-19 patients. "The penny is starting to drop. We are in a deep crisis. I’m not sure to what extent people really understand the crisis we are in … The only way we are going to get out of [it] is through a joint effort," commented Minerals Council SA president Mxolisi Mgojo. With the number of infections expected to peak in September, Covid-19 was something SA and, indeed, the industry, would have to learn to live with for some time to come, Mgojo stated. Meanwhile, unions are worried. Amcu has called for universal testing of all workers, but the council says that is not feasible. Gideon du Plessis of Solidarity noted that the economic reality of the lockdown has set in: "Solidarity is involved in 232 section 189 [retrenchment] processes, and 13 business rescues and liquidations. A survey found 60% of Solidarity members had to take a salary cut, while 6.6% believe the company they work for is no longer sustainable."
Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lisa Steyn at BusinessLive
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