Barberton mineworkers in despair

Biting hunger, despondency and mounting debt stalk the mining community of Louisville near Barberton, Mpumalanga.

Roy Fungu, 51, a rock-drill operator at Vantage Goldfields's Barbrook shaft, sits at the door of his two-room rented house, staring at the sky.

The only food he has eaten in the past two days is boiled wild fruit and roots. The last time he sent money to his two children back home in Massinga, Mozambique, was in August.

He owes the local shopowner R1,000 and his credit has dried up.

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"Instead of me sending money home, I have had to ask my mother to send me money for my wife to go back home because the situation is getting harder," he said.

Fungu's troubles started when a central pillar in a shaft at Lily gold mine collapsed in February. The resulting sinkhole took with it a shipping container office. Inside were employees Solomon Nyerende, Yvonne Mnisi and Pretty Nkambule. The container and the bodies have been trapped 80m down the mine ever since.

Mining ground to a halt and the mine went into business rescue. About 300 miners were retrenched while about 100 - including Fungu - were offered jobs at nearby Barbrook shaft, which is also owned by Vantage Goldfields.

Those retrenched have yet to receive a cent. Money promised to the families of the dead miners has also never been paid.

In June, the approximately 800 workers at Barbrook received letters telling them that from July their salaries would be reduced by 25% for three months.

Then salary dates were moved from the 25th of the month to the 10th, resulting in debit orders not going through. In October they received full salaries but in November there was no salary at all.

Workers said this week that the mining company had promised to pay their salaries on Thursday, but by close of business no money had been paid.

Simon Mhlabane, 62, is a mine locomotive driver at Barbrook. His debts at furniture and clothing shops stand at R10000 and he has stopped taking calls from unfamiliar numbers.

"What am I going to say when I take the call? My children are hungry. I am starving and there is no hope in sight."

Mhlabane said he battled to understand how the Lily Mine tragedy had affected Barbrook because "every week the mining company's helicopter collects at least three bars of gold from the plant, while we are starving".

"It is not like we are not working. We only stopped working on Friday [December 2] because we were not getting paid. Management tells us the mine produces 79g of gold a day but people working in the processing plant tell us in a good week, three bars of gold are produced," he said.

This week, the miners staged a sit-in at the company's office in nearby Nelspruit.

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Mhlabane, a shop steward of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, said the union had failed workers.

He said all the union was interested in was the R51 monthly membership fee - and was doing nothing now that there was no money coming in.

Vuyo Mdunyelwa, 30, from the Eastern Cape, said humanitarian aid organisation Gift of the Givers brought food parcels at least twice a week but was unable to provide for everybody.

He said some workers had become beggars to survive.

"It is difficult. I will be stuck here for Christmas because I do not have money to go home."

Shopowner Karan Ahmad said he had given groceries worth R70,000 to the miners in the past five months, with credit for one worker hitting R20,000.

He said the Lily Mine tragedy had killed business in the area and the situation was growing more hopeless by the day.

"It is difficult to turn away somebody who has shopped from you for over five years when he desperately needs help. You can actually see hunger on their faces when they walk in here begging for credit," he said.

He will have to close his shop if the dire situation continues. "I spent R400,000 building this shop but now I am running at a loss."