Mining
Three sickness suits combined
Lawyers for more than 25 000 miners and the dependants of dead workers who contracted silicosis and tuberculosis while working on South African gold mines filed an application last week to combine three pending cases against producers. Abrahams Kiewitz Attorneys, the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and Richard Spoor Attorneys filed the application in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Wednesday. They named 32 respondent companies including AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold and Gold Fields. “We believe that consolidation and this class action is the best route for our clients,” Sayi Nindi, an attorney at the LRC, said. The joint litigations against the firms, which owned or operated 82 gold mines since 1956, were separately lodged in South African courts last year. “The failure… to take responsibility for this, the largest and longest running industrial disaster in modern history, and to make redress, compels us to litigate,” Richard Spoor, a lawyer at Richard Spoor Attorneys, said. – Bloomberg
Infrastructure
Water project creates 846 jobs
More than 800 jobs were created in the first phase of the Mthonjaneni bulk water project in Richards Bay, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said on Saturday. “Job creation has… been a strong focus, with 846 jobs created during phase one, which is now operational, following five years of hard work,” she said. Once the second phase had been completed, 281 864 people would have access to clean water, and the backlog in the municipality would be reduced by 30 percent, she said. The department had invested about R150 million on phase one. “The Greater Mthonjaneni Water Project… is one of the projects we will embark on to eradicate… backlogs. The project will supply parts of uMfolozi, Mthonjaneni and Ntambanana local municipalities when it is completed.”– Sapa