JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The Portfolio Committee on Mining will next week travel to four South African provinces to investigate illegal mining incidents and the death of mine workers, the Parliamentary communication services said on Friday.

The committee would, on Tuesday, visit Harmony Gold’s Eland shaft, in Welkom, where 86 illegal miners had died in June.

On Wednesday, the committee would go to Impala Platinum’s Rustenburg mine, where nine mineworkers were killed in an underground accident, at the end of July.

The committee would then move on to Mpumalanga to visit gold-junior Pan African Resources’ Baberton mines, where about 35 illegal miners had died at the beginning of the year.

It would conclude its tour at the Coronation Mine, in Vryheid, in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday.

Comittee chairperson Fred Gona noted in a statement that it would also meet with the task team set up by Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu to look into ways of dealing with this organised crime, which was reportedly costing the industry billions of rands.

“Parliament will not tolerate the continuing deaths of people, whether through illegal mining or normal mine accidents. We are going to make legislative changes if so required, depending on what we pick on the ground. If we find that there has been any negligence on the side of mine management, action will be taken,” he said.

Parliament’s select committee on economic development, in June, proposed that the country’s mining laws be improved to include legislation that governs illegal mining.

There was currently no legislation that criminalised illegal mining. Illegal miners were charged with trespassing, which is a minor offence compared with the seriousness of the practice, the committee said at the time.

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