Mineworkers and subcontractors working on remote sites in Southern Africa have a home away from home, having benefited from the wholesome environments and services that specialist remote site manager Fedics Site Services has created for them, says company MD Andrew St Clair-Laing.

He tells Mining Weekly that Fedics Site Services, a division of facilities and infrastructure management company Tsebo Outsourcing Group, delivers tailor-made and holistic solutions to clients throughout Africa that enable the creation of valuable infrastructure and development projects.

Company clients include Rustenburg-based platinum mining companies in the North West and gold mineworkers operating in Carletonville, Gauteng. Fedics also provides services for diversified miner Vedanta Resources' Skorpion zinc mine and Glencore’s Rosh Pinah Zinc Corp mine, near Rosh Pinah, in southern Namibia, through a joint venture with its partner, Namibia-based catering and hospitality company Catering and Contracts Management.

“We are an experienced technical partner that supplies noncore business activities to create an environment where people can live comfortably. We want people. . . to relax in their living space and. . . feel secure when they sleep at night. We also provide wholesome food for them. . . all this is done to ensure that, as a result of the nurturing living environment, they are productive when they go to work,” St Clair-Laing explains.

He adds that health and safety is an important aspect of the company’s business, with the in-house occupation health and safety team auditing operational practices and driving continuous improvement.

St Clair-Laing tells Mining Weekly that Fedics Site Services provides services for its mining clients at remote sites by helping them design purpose-built and functional camps or villages for their employees. “The client provides us with land on which to build the camp and we then contract one of the companies we work with, such as prefabricated structures manufacturer Kwikspace and modular building solutions manufacturer Abacus Space Solutions to assist in designing, planning and erecting the camps.”

Services, such as catering, furnishings, housekeeping, cleaning and laundry services, health and safety management, as well as sports and recreation facilities, like gyms and bars, are added after the camps have been erected, he adds.

St Clair-Laing says Fedics Site Services worked at the Moma Mineral Sands Project in Taupito, Mozambique, from 2004 to 2009. Engineering group Bateman was building a mine and contracted Fedics Site Services to provide all the hospitality services for the project. The remote camp housed between 500 and 600 people at the peak of the project.

During the five-year period, Fedics Site Services packed the daily takeaway meals and drinks for workers at the construction site, and provided the in-flight food and beverages on board the aircraft that transported Bateman employees from the project site to the camps, says St Clair-Laing.

“Our challenges at this multimillion-dollar project were mainly centred around planning and logistics and getting fresh supplies from the City of Nampula, which was 300 km from the site. In some instances, the round trip would take two days instead of one, owing to the poor state of the roads that we had to use,” says St Clair-Laing.

Investing in Society
St Clair-Laing tells Mining Weekly that an important part of Fedics Site Services’ business philosophy is corporate social consciousness and leaving a legacy in the communities in which the company has been active, hence the employment and training of local people living in the vicinity of its projects.

“We employ them as housekeepers, cooks, cleaners and gate guards. We take the training seriously and consider it as empowering people to improve their lives,” he explains, adding that most of the training is coordinated through the company’s in-house training institution, the Institute of Hospitality Studies.

Fedics sometimes negotiates with clients to leave some of the buildings standing on site and not to demobilise the camps so that the communities can benefit from the prefabricated housing structures after the mining operations have been completed. The communities can then use the structures as houses, community centres, clinics and schools.

“. . . something good must come out of communities’ involvement with us,” says St Clair-Laing.

Fedics also sponsors local sports teams. The company’s affiliate, Lephalale Site Services, which is responsible for providing food and catering services at the Medupi power station project, in Limpopo, sponsored the sports kit of Bosveld Primary’s under-12 hockey team for their tour during the July school holidays.

“We always try to be a good corporate citizen,” he concludes.