The Department of Employment and Labour has paid out more than R1 million in benefits to former mineworkers and their dependants during a week-long outreach programme in the Eastern Cape.
The outreach, conducted in Port St Johns in the OR Tambo District, was held in partnership with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), the Compensation Fund, the Eastern Cape Provincial Government and the Port St Johns Municipality.
It formed part of Project Thubalethu, an initiative aimed at tracing unclaimed and unpaid social benefits owed to former mineworkers.
The UIF paid out a total of R1 278 846.28 in benefits to 277 clients, providing financial relief to beneficiaries and, where beneficiaries had passed away, to their dependants.
According to the department, the money comes at a crucial time for many families.
“Some of the mineworkers on whose behalf claims had been lodged did not live to see the outreach; in those cases, the benefits now pass to their dependents, offering a measure of relief to households that carried the weight of illness, injury or loss without the support that was due to them all along,” the department said.
Commissioner for Occupational Diseases at the Medical Bureau for Occupational Diseases (MBOD) and the Compensation Commissioner for Occupational Diseases (CCOD), Barry Kistnasamy, said an estimated R18 million in benefits remains unclaimed by former mineworkers in the Port St Johns area alone.
Nationally, an estimated R10 billion in benefits remains unclaimed by ex-mineworkers and their dependants.
Kistnasamy said bringing services directly to communities where former mineworkers live is the most effective way of ensuring beneficiaries receive the money owed to them.
The department's Acting Director-General, Jacky Molisane, said the outreach programme addresses the legacy of labour migration, noting that South Africa's mining industry historically recruited workers from rural areas, particularly the Eastern Cape.
“Project Thubalethu is an initiative to roll out services-on-wheels by relevant stakeholders and departments for ex-mineworkers in the Eastern Cape to address unclaimed and unpaid social protection benefits and occupational disease and injury claims due to them,” she said.
Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane said the province is home to about 370 000 former mineworkers who spent years working underground, often under hazardous conditions that exposed them to occupational diseases and workplace injuries.
The Premier said integrated outreach programmes like Project Thubalethu help ensure that beneficiaries and, where applicable, their dependants finally receive the benefits owed to them.
In addition to the benefit payments, 319 former mineworkers were assisted with work-related injury claims, while more than 400 work seekers were registered on the Employment Services of South Africa (ESSA) database and received employment counselling.
The outreach also included workplace inspections in the wholesale and retail sector. Inspectors issued 11 non-compliance orders and 53 contravention notices to employers for failing to comply with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act. – SAnews.gov.za
