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The horrific gang rape of eight women near Krugersdorp at the end of July has pushed illegal mining and associated crime to the forefront of public discourse and political attention.The country was appalled by the rapes and the violence inflicted on the women and the crew of a film shoot at a mine dump site on 29 July 2022. This tragic and horrible incident highlights how broken our society is and that the women in our country are not assured of their safety and their dignity.
The events of that day and the alleged perpetrators being illegal miners operating in the area has shone a very bright light on the matter of illicit mining, crime, immigration, and the vast scale of derelict and ownerless mines that are the responsibility of the state and which provide ample opportunities for illegal mining.
The mining industry is confronted and affected by three primary forms of criminality. There is illegal mining, which is perpetrated by foot soldiers of large criminal syndicates, is carried out on derelict and ownerless mines, existing mines, and virgin deposits. This work is conducted without regard for safety or environmental standards applied by formal mining operations.; These gangs of miners working in dangerous circumstances are protected by heavily armed men, who are unafraid to attack mine security and police.
Illegal mining, according to the United Nations, is connected to international criminal syndicates that engage in smuggling, fraudulent transactions, and human rights violations, including human trafficking, women and child abuse, sex abuse, and child labour.
Illegal gold miners often resort to the use of mercury to extract gold from crushed rock, resulting in environmental contamination. Illicit mining of coal or chrome on an industrial scale leaves vast swathes of unrehabilitated sites and water pollution. This mining degrades the environment and leaves the financial burden on the state to repair the damage.
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy has 6,100 derelict and ownerless mines in its remit to rehabilitate. The work is expensive and slow. Attempts to seal shafts prove fruitless as illegal miners find ways around or through the concrete slabs to access these old mines.
The question is raised how come illegal miners are able to extract gold, for example, from these old mines, giving rise to the perception that there are viable business opportunities to restart these shafts. However, consideration must be given that formal mining entails enormous investments in safe operating environments, with tunnel and stope support, lighting, cooling, equipment, and protective gear along with training, competitive salaries, medical aids, pensions, taxes, royalties, input costs and rehabilitation fund provisions. None of this is paid by criminal syndicates.
Formal mines are dealing with theft of their products, infrastructure, and infiltration of their operations. There are attacks on operations by heavily armed gangs that put employees’ lives at risk and have resulted in deaths of staff. The most recent incident was an electrician who was shot during an attack on Sibanye-Stillwater’s Cooke gold shafts by a group of heavily armed men. Sibanye had closed the Cooke mines near Randfontein in 2017 because of problems stemming from illegal mining and operational under-performance.
Criminal syndicates targeting operational mines engage in bribery and intimidation of key employees to access underground workings or logistics. Eskom has noted a trend that deliveries of vastly inferior coal to its power plants are not the same as those leaving collieries. Media reports have explained how coal trucks are diverted, emptied of quality coal, and filled with discards for Eskom.
The third key area of crime felt by the mining industry is on the rail network, where 1,500km of cables have been stolen over the past five years, contributing to enormous disruptions of deliveries of coal, chrome, manganese, and iron ore. The Minerals Council estimates that the industry forfeited revenue of R35 billion in 2021 because delivered tonnes falling well short of targeted tonnages because of crime on the rail network and the legacy of state capture at Transnet, leaving more than 100 locomotives purchased in deals allegedly tainted by corruption idled without access to spares.
It is almost impossible to put an accurate value on the criminal enterprises that focus on the mining industry. Minister Gwede Mantashe has in the past said illegal mining costs the country about R41 billion, but it may be more or less than that.
The true cost of illegal mining and deteriorating mine and rail security goes beyond the financial. It is a corrosive crime that breaks down societal values, destroys communities, results in human tragedy, and has longer-term consequences environmentally and in perceptions of the country as a safe investment destination.
The matter needs urgent attention from all spheres of government. This problem is bigger than just the mining industry and it needs true political will and intent to address it before it grows any further.