The leadership in the mining industry – through boards of mining companies, organised labour, associations such as the South African Colliery Managers Association and Mine Health and Safety Council and institutions such as the Department of Mineral Resources (DMRE) – must ensure that safety and health are a way of life in the coal mining industry. This was a message conveyed by David Msiza, Chief Inspector of Mines at the DMRE, during his keynote address at COAL SAFE 2025.
Msiza said zero harm in coal mining is possible to achieve, so long as the leadership is vigilant and careful against complacency and continues to care. “We have not yet arrived but we will continue to support your initiatives. We always feel at home as a department within the coal sector and we see the value in attending COAL SAFE every year. I want to commend you and encourage you on the drive of making sure that we sustain the coal mining sector.”
He said sustaining the coal sector and looking after the workers is important as the sector will still be around for a long time. “New mines are still opening. We are still left with about 200 years of mining activity. We just have to continue to work together and go through the changing landscape.”
The COAL SAFE event provides a space where industry players interrogate safety issues within the sector, with recent research results and statistics being shared for accurate understanding. However Msiza reminded the gathering that the issues they were discussing are about human beings. “When we talk about the numbers, please appreciate that they represent human beings with ambitions not only for themselves but for their families too. This is why we must keep believing that zero harm is important and achievable.”
He referenced the mining disasters which happened at the Coalbrook coal mine of Clydesdale Colliery in the Free State on 21 January 1960 where 437 miners died, and the Vaal Reefs mine disaster on 10 May 1995 at the gold mining town of Orkney in North West where 104 miners were killed, and said the DMRE is committed to work with the mining industry to ensure that such mining disasters never happen again.
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“The trends and experiences have demonstrated that over time we’ve put a lot of effort as the mining sector to make sure that we don’t have a repeat of such disasters. One of the key things has been working with organised labour and business through the Mine Health and Safety Council and agreeing that it is not good enough for us to only focus on the technical measures of improving health and safety, but we must put more emphasis on other factors that will prevent us from achieving the goal of zero harm – the issues of culture and behaviour are very important for us to focus on.”
Lifestyle diseases
Msiza said another pertinent factor is the existence of lifestyle diseases, or non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes. At one stage the coal sector used to report about 129 fatalities a year in NCDs. Although this figure has reduced to about six in current times and year on year the coal sector has had a 14% reduction between 2023 and 2024, the sector continues to maintain its focus on this.
“This has been included as a new milestone. We believe that if we also focus on the lifestyle diseases and NCDs there will be further improvement on productivity and the well-being of the mine workers, especially as the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization have indicated that factors such as exposure to diesel fumes also negatively affect the well-being of workers. So it’s very important that we care in the actions that we take to make sure that we achieve the goal of zero harm.”
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Msiza also shared that the contribution to fatalities from transport, fall of ground and machinery accidents has gone down. “Although we have seen minimal improvement in terms of the transport and the fall of ground accidents, there has been a significant improvement in machinery accidents. Last year we didn’t have an incident involving machinery related accidents.” He added that one of the significant developments in the overall picture of accidents has been that there are no longer fatalities involving electricity and explosives. “That’s why I strongly believe that we can manage to do the same with the other categories of accidents.”
“Once again, as the department responsible for mining and mineral resources, I would like to say that we’ll continue working together with you because that’s the biggest strength we have to assist us in achieving that goal of zero harm in mining.”