South Africa: Compensation process continues but delays remain for ex-miners suffering from occupational lung disease, following 2018 settlement with 6 mining cos.
The health and safety of this workforce was not a pressing boardroom concern so long as the dividends kept flowing. An untold number of gold miners from the far-flung reaches of the rural Eastern Cape, Lesotho, Mozambique and other places contracted silicosis by inhaling silica dust from gold-bearing rocks.Ed Stoddard, Daily Maverick
In 2012, a class-action lawsuit was launched against six mining companies, Harmony Gold, Gold Fields, African Rainbow Minerals, Sibanye-Stillwater, AngloGold Ashanti and Anglo American, after miners working for the companies contracted incurable lung diseases, including TB and silicosis. The impacted workers included many migrant workers, including from Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi.
In 2018, a settlement of R5 billion was reached and the settlement was approved in the courts in 2019. There are now 50 claims centres in South Africa and neighbouring countries.
In 2021, Daily Maverick reported that the claims process for the settlement was “finally under way”, according to the trust managing the payments, Tshiamiso Trust. Several claimants had been paid in a pilot process and general claims were beginning to be processed. The slow development of the compensation claims left prospective claimants frustrated, as many are old and unwell.
In April 2024, Times Live reported that the Tshiamiso Trust had disbursed R1.5 billion to claimants, reaching 16,417 eligible claimants. However, the Trust said is was experiencing challenges for a significant number of claimants, including the requirement that TB or silicosis had to be recorded as the primary cause of death for the workers, while in many cases the medical cause of death was not included on official death certificates.