Pretoria – Since February, Operation Ku-Riha has paid R59 million to 1 443 ex-mineworkers for compensation benefits in South Africa and its neighbouring countries, says Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources, Godfrey Oliphant.
The project was launched last year by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, together with Deputy Minister Oliphant, the Chamber of Mines as well as trade unions to pay R1.5 billion to about 103 000 ex-mineworkers.
The project is aimed at tackling the backlog of compensation claims from mineworkers who suffered from occupational lung diseases while working in the mining sector, and ensuring that new valid claims were paid within a reasonable timeframe.
Speaking on Friday, in Pretoria, during a media briefing, Deputy Minister Oliphant said progress has been slow because of the setting up of the tracking and tracing system.
According to the Deputy Minister there are about R30 billion in unclaimed benefits.
“A substantial portion of that money is for ex-mineworkers who partly as a legacy of the migrant labour system have not accessed these funds,” Deputy Minister Oliphant said.
He is part of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) for the Revitalisation of Distressed Mining Communities established to give effect to the Special Presidential Package for the revitalisation of mining districts and their labour sending areas.
In 2013, he was delegated to find solutions for ex-mineworkers in the Eastern Cape who had unclaimed benefits in the Department of Labour and Department of Health.
“Through our efforts, about 14 000 ex-mineworkers received compensation benefits amounting to R40 million and 8 000 received UIF benefits amounting to R14 million.
“Our lessons from that activity has shown that the majority of ex mineworkers are in rural villages and have little knowledge about their benefits,” Deputy Minister Oliphant said.
The Department of Health has developed a database of ex-mineworkers that covers both the demographic details and medical records of ex-mineworkers.
“This database covers 700 000 claimant records and will assist all agencies across government to track and trace persons with unclaimed benefits.
“To enrich the database we have started discussions with the Chamber of Mines to cover the current workforce of 500 000 mineworkers,” he said.
Acting Director-General for the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Tshediso Matona, said the unclaimed benefits amounting to billions of rands could do a lot to alleviate poverty, restore dignity and boost the economy.
“We all need to do more to improve the access of workers and ex-workers to their funds that they contributed to over their working lives,” Matona said.
He said government is taking steps to deal with illegal entities who are collecting the historical employment information of ex-mineworkers at a fee. – SAnews.gov.za
