Pan African Resources has highlighted the detrimental effects that illegal mining and gold theft are having on local communities surrounding its Barberton Mines in Mpumalanga.
The announcement follows significant retrenchments earlier this year when the mining company let go of more than 200 workers due to unsustainable operating costs across several business units.
“We have endeavoured to implement numerous and ongoing interventions to improve productivity and to ensure the sustainability of Barberton Mines for the long term, but increasing gold theft – including by our own employees and through collaboration with illegal miners and aided and abetted by sections of the community – along with the commensurate increase in security costs, have had a major negative impact,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We have warned employees and stakeholders many times that the current situation is not sustainable, and the most affected by illegal actions are our local communities.”
The mid-tier gold producer said Barberton Mines’ positive impact on local communities was well known since the mine is the largest employer in the region, directly employing some 3 759 employees currently.
It highlighted corporate social investments such as clinics and new schools it has built, learnerships, bursaries it has provided, and projects such as the blueberry farm that has created nearly 300 seasonal jobs, among many others.
“So, retrenchment of the identified workers was unavoidable and will enable the mines to operate sustainably, and continue to contribute to our stakeholders over the long-term,” it said.
“However, we need our employees and communities to understand that illegal mining is killing the industry and we are not immune to further cuts should the situation deteriorate any further.”
After some of the retrenched workers threatened to take legal action, the miner on Tuesday said the retrenchment process was fully transparent and involved all legitimate stakeholders, including organised labour, the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR), Traditional Authorities and the municipality, and facilitated through the CCMA.
Pan African said that some 980 positions were initially identified for retrenchment, although this was reduced to 244 through redeployment, a joint consensus seeking consultation process, and voluntary severance and retrenchment packages.
Pan African also said Barberton Mines management implemented numerous operational processes to restructure the operations to mitigate losses, including full calendar operations, infrastructure enhancements, improved security technology and other cost saving measures and efficiencies, before embarking on the retrenchment process.
“These challenges were discussed with our employee future forums as required by the legislation to explore potential solutions. This did not yield results over a period of some three years,” it said.
“Thereafter, intensive consultation processes were undertaken since the announcement was made to employees on 11 February this year and over that period to now, all legitimate stakeholders were engaged, including organised labour, the DMPR and Traditional Authorities.
“The process followed was transparent and fair, applied agreed principles for selection criteria, includes severance benefits and support offered to affected employees as contained in the Retrenchment Agreement as signed by all relevant stakeholders as part of the joint consensus consultation process.”
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