EDITORIAL | Artisanal mining is a vital part of SA’s economy and must be formalised

A violent clamour for SA’s dwindling precious metals is driving a deadly war which threatens to destabilise the already fragile mining industry.

The murder of eight illegal miners in the gold mining town of Orkney in North West, who were shot dead during a gunfight with police and mine security earlier this month, has once again shone a spotlight on the violence-fraught sector.

Caught in the crosshairs of the state, mining houses and organised crime gangs, which increasingly resort to violence to both guard and steal SA’s precious resources, are thousands of artisanal miners, the majority of whom are retrenched mineworkers.

The Minerals Council of SA says that annually the country loses R7bn worth of precious metals and diamonds through theft.   

According to a report published this past weekend by the Sunday Times, the eight who were killed in Orkney were reportedly artisanal miners trying to escape from a ventilation shaft of a China Africa Precious Metal mine.

They had, according to the National Association of Artisanal Miners, been taken hostage by a group of “mineral gangsters”, enslaved and forced to work in tunnels deep beneath the surface.

Enslavement is a threat thousands of small-scale and artisanal miners face on a daily basis in SA.

NAAM chairperson Paps Lethoko says the majority of “mineral gangsters’” victims are their members who are attacked and kidnapped while working on SA’s mine dumps. They are reportedly held for months underground and forced to dig gold out of mothballed mines, which mining houses have deemed too expensive to operate.

In May this year the department of mineral resources and energy published a draft policy which seeks to legalise artisanal and small-scale mining.

With at least 120 illegal miners murdered annually on Gauteng’s gold fields, a policy now more than ever is needed to stem the flow of blood by formalising SA’s burgeoning small-scale mining sector.

There are, according to NAAM, an estimated 50,000 small-scale miners who are desperately in need of protection and security and who want to contribute to SA’s economic growth and development.

With at least 120 illegal miners murdered annually on Gauteng’s gold fields, according to artisanal mining researcher Maxwell Chuma, a policy now more than ever is needed to stem the flow of blood by formalising SA’s burgeoning small-scale mining sector.

Lethoko is adamant that their workforce wants to operate legally, pay taxes and work in a way that not only protects themselves and the environment, but also communities living around SA’s mines.

Videos posted regularly on social media show how such communities live in continual fear, with business owners coerced into supplying criminal gangs, while residents cower in fear as bullets fly past their homes.

With the police, department of mineral resources and energy and mining houses seemingly unwilling or unable to stop the uncontrollable violence, a new tack is urgently needed.

For the bloodshed to stop, those who find themselves in the country’s mining trenches must join together and hash out a plan to end the criminal looting of SA’s dwindling precious resources, and bring formality to an informal sector which can help boost the economy.​