DA suggests formalising small-scale mining to prevent illegal activity
The Democratic Alliance (DA) said it was time to look at formalizing small-scale mining to prevent incidents like the Boksburg gas leak disaster from happening again.
Wednesday marks one week since 17 people died at the Angelo informal settlement, following the accidental leak of nitrogen oxide by zama zamas (illegal miners).
It is alleged the zama zamas tried to cut open the cylinder carrying the harmful gas to use it for refining gold.
DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga said dangerous illegal mining would continue in Boksburg and across other mining towns in the country while there were still minerals in the ground.
“Fact of the matter is there is a big economy around mining and this area is still producing a lot of minerals.
“Now, government can bury its head in the sand, or we can really fast track the issue of how do we then ensure that we regularise small scale mining? Tanzania does it and does it successfully.”
During the publication’s recent visits to the area, residents said that illegal mining resumed near the informal settlement, despite the provincial government’s promise to crack down on it.
Msimanga said police were not equipped to deal with illegal miners.
“We’ve been promised that there would be policing that is taking place. I can tell you right now, our police are not equipped to deal with going into these holes and tracking these people underground.
“We need to, then, be talking about how serious we are about ensuring that we are able to train people to then deal with these issues of illegal mining, regularise it, and then ensure going forward, government can actually benefit out of this.”
-EWN
In other news – Watch: Actress Thembi Seete dances in the snow
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