Hundreds of former mineworkers from the OR Tambo and Chris Hani district municipalities were able to claim benefits due to them during a four-day outreach programme that provided a one-stop shop to claim for their unresolved benefits.
The outreach programme was hosted by the Eastern Cape provincial government in partnership with the Department of Health and the Department of Employment and Labour, as well as the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. It also included various mining industry stakeholders to enable eligible former mineworkers or their beneficiaries to submit claims for compensation.
The OR Tambo District Municipality is home to a high number of ex-mineworkers in the Eastern Cape.
“This is an initiative of government working with mining companies to bring these services closer to ex-mineworkers, because we realised that if someone had to go to where the mining company they worked for was, they would have to go through too many offices to get the assistance that this one-stop shop outreach programme is able to provide,” said the deputy minister of Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, during an outreach programme held in Libode, on April 19.
Similar outreach programmes took place in Ngqeleni and Ngcobo Indoor Sports Centre in April.
Dhlomo added that the outreach programme was able to screen former mineworkers for diseases such as silicosis and tuberculosis that they contracted in the mines, and confirm whether one was due for compensation. Employment and Labour deputy minister, Boitumelo Moloi, said her department was able to assist, through the Compensation Fund, those who were injured and had to leave work in the mines due to their injuries. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy said that it was also looking at strengthening legislation to ensure that mining companies pay their former employees what is due to them and in time.
“We have a lot of enforcement programmes as a department, and central to those are these outreach programmes that ensure that we reach former mineworkers in every corner of South Africa, and beyond the borders of the country. We are also closing gaps in our legislation to ensure that mining companies comply and pay their former employees in time,” said Mineral Resources and Energy deputy minister, Nobuhle Nkabane.
Other stakeholders who were part of the outreach programme include the Medical Bureau for Occupational Diseases, Department of Home Affairs, Tshiamo Trust and U-Bank.
