Across the region, 280,000 ex-mineworkers are estimated to be eligible for compensation under South Africa’s Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act...Those who…manage to apply for compensation…wait years to be paid, and the amounts they eventually receive are insignificant…This could change after a Constitutional Court…found that…an ex-mineworker, could claim damages of more than of R2.6 million (US$366,440) from his former employer, AngloGold Ashanti, for a lung disease he acquired while working at one of their mines. Another case… is expected to go to court in 2012 and involves 18 ex-mineworkers who developed silicosis and TB after working at the President Steyn gold mine in Welkom… They are suing the mine's former parent company, Anglo American, for failing to adequately advise its subsidiaries on the safe operation of their mines.