Slip-up 'could close a mine'

Health and Safety Amendment Bill 'would deter investors'.

- Antoinette Slabbert

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS: ACT PROPOSES SEVERAL PENALTIES LINKED TO SPECIFIC OFFENCES.

If the proposed amendments to the Mine Health and Safety Act are adopted unchanged, mines will I close, and investors will stay away from the South African mining industry, says Willem le Roux, executive consultant of the Mine and Occupational Health and Safety Department at law firm ENSafrica.

The Bill was published for comment in 2022 and then referred to Nedlac for consideration.

Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe gave notice in the Government Gazette earlier this month that he will introduce the Amended Bill in parliament in the near future.

It is largely unchanged from the 2022 version, says Le Roux.

According to the notice, its aim is, among others, "to amend and review the enforcement provisions, simplify the fine system and strengthen offences and penalties to ensure that they serve as [a] deterrent for non-compliance".

This is despite a sharp decline in fatalities in the last decade.