Survivors of the Marikana massacre have accused the government of seeking to settle only part of their claims for the tragedy.
Attorney Andries Nkome, who represents the miners who were arrested and injured during the strike over wages at Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana in August 2012, said it was not true that the government had made a R100million offer.
“The government seeks to only settle some of the claims and not the rest. We are in discussions with them to say they must make sure that when they come to us with an offer, it ought to be for all the unlawful arrests, for all the unlawful injuries as well as the malicious prosecutions,” Nkome said.
“It is not even true that there is a settlement offer that has been tabled for R100m. The claims we have lodged were for far more than R100m,” he said.
Nkome said his clients were aggrieved when they heard about the R100m government settlement offer in the media.
“We consulted clients only yesterday (Sunday). Before we got to them, they had been hearing from the media about the offers made to them.
“They are very aggrieved at the fact that these offers are being leaked to the media,” Nkome said.
At least 44 miners were gunned down by police and many others were injured.
In September last year, the family of one of the deceased miners who had seven dependants accepted a payout of R3.9m from the government.
Police Minister Bheki Cele’s spokesperson Reneilwe Serero could not be reached for comment yesterday.
At a parliamentary briefing last year, police said litigation claims totalled R1.17bn.
Brigadier Nashee Sewpersadh, who was acting deputy director-general in the Police Ministry, said summonses served with regard to compensation indicated that 325 families were suing for “loss of support following the killing of their breadwinners” and were claiming R179m.
At least 36 miners injured during the shooting wanted R100.9m in compensation, which could amount to about R2.8m for each miner if granted.
A total of 285 people claiming that they were assaulted, arrested, detained and/or maliciously prosecuted wanted R870.9m, meaning that if there was an agreement, each mine worker would receive just more than R3m.
The survivors rejected Presi-
dent Cyril Ramaphosa’s apology last year, saying it was opportunistic.
Nkome said discussions on the settlement offers were continuing.
The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA (SERI), which represents the families of the murdered miners, said it was aware of the reports regarding the R100m in compensation to the families of the miners killed during the massacre.
“SERI is currently taking instructions from the families on various offers of compensation that have been made by the state via the State Attorney. None of those offers, whether individually or collectively, amount to anything close to R100m.
“We have no further comment at this time, and will make no comment until our instructions are complete, and an agreement has been reached with the State Attorney,” the institute said in a statement.
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