Under South African law mine-owners are responsible for the health and safety of miners.

Senior union representatives have gone below to deal directly with the striking miners – so far to no avail.

The Orkney mineworkers are protesting what they describe as the “arrogant, brutal and exploitative” attitude of the Chinese mine-owners.

The mine is owned by China African Precious Metals (CAPM), with a Shanghai-based group holding the majority share.

At the heart of the dispute is an 8 per cent pay increase offered by the mine’s local management linked with worker demands that include workers – who mostly live in grimy single-sex mine hostels – being paid a “living-out” allowance.

The mine’s Chinese owners refused the workers’ demands and rescinded the 8 per cent wage increase offered by the mine’s local management without explanation, triggering the underground strike.

With two ministerial task teams due to visit the mine – one from South Africa’s labour department, the other from the mineral resources ministry – the NUM was expressing concern over the health and safety of the mineworkers engaged in the underground sit-in at the Orkney No 7 shaft.

According to NUM spokesperson Livhuwani Mammburu, the union had meetings with the local management in a fruitless bid to bring the strike action to an end.

“There was another meeting earlier this morning, but the workers are still underground and refusing to come out,” he added.

NUM President Joseph Montisetse also went underground at No 7 shaft, but workers had turned down the latest offer from the company, said Montisetse.

It was “outrageous” that the Chinese owners had refused to listen to the workers’ demands, he added.

The union has been engaged with the management in wage negotiations since September 2018.

“After the intervention of the NUM, the management conceded on 8 per cent with conditions that they can only link that (increase) to job-grading if there is (adequate) production, and there will be no living out allowances,” Montisetse said.

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“It is this kind of arrogance by CAPM management that provoked the workers to resort to a sit-in underground. We view this behaviour by CAPM as a sign of not caring about mine workers. Capitalists don’t value anything except maximisation of wealth.”

Montisetse called on the South African government, through the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), to urgently convene a high-level meeting between the NUM, CAPM and the DMR to resolve the matter and ensure that all the workers who are underground come to the surface safely.

Trouble has been brewing at the mine for some time, amid allegations from the mine’s local junior partners, a black economic empowerment company headed by a“close associate” of former South Africa president Jacob Zuma, that the majority owners, Shanghai-based Golden Haven, had been starving the mine of capital “for years” in a bid to force out its black junior partners.

The mine, which had lain dormant for two years after its former owner, Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Pamodzi Gold, was liquidated in 2011, was bought by Chinese investors in 2012 who agreed to an initial capital injection of 600 million rand (about US$41.4 million).

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The capital was needed to rehabilitate the mine after it was said to be looted and left flooded by prior owners, a nephew of Zuma, another being one of Nelson Mandela’s grandsons.

CAPM, which bought the Orkney mines, including Shaft No 7, for 151.2 million rand (US$10.5 million), employs about 460 workers at the gold mine.

In December last year black-empowerment firm BEK Holdings, which owns 26 per cent of CAPM, made a liquidation application in the High Court in Johannesburg after a “breakdown” in relations with its majority Chinese partner, Golden Haven Limited, a subsidiary of Shanghai Pengxin Group (SPG), and which owns 74 per cent of CAPM.

The liquidation move by BEK owner Elias Khumalo, described as a close Zuma associate, came after mediation efforts by mineral resources officials failed.

More than 5,000 workers at the Orkney and Grootvlei gold mines lost their jobs after the mines were stripped of gold and assets valued at 1.82 billion rand (about US$125.5 million) while under the control of Aurora Empowerment Systems.

The mines were placed under Aurora’s control during a 2009 liquidation process, but were looted and their shafts left flooded.

Aurora directors, including Khulubuse Zuma and one of Nelson Mandela’s grandsons, Zondwa Mandela, were found in 2015 by the High Court in Pretoria to be personally responsible for stripping the mines’ assets.

Relations soured between the CAPM partners after new leadership at Golden Haven removed Khumalo as CAPM executive director, appointed a new chief executive, and demoted Khumalo to a non-executive director on a much-reduced salary.

Khumalo claims the decision, taken in August 2018, was irregular. According to the liquidation application, Golden Haven failed to honour an earlier commitment to invest 100 million rand (about US$7 million) in the mine for the processing of gold extracted there since 2012.

In a July 2018 communication to Golden Haven CEO Lee Jiang, Khumalo reportedly complained of “irreconcilable differences and trust issues” between the partners, offering either to sell his share of the company or to buy Golden Haven’s.

In response, Jiang declined, saying that BEK had not “triggered” the relevant legal process and that Golden Haven would oppose attempts to liquidate CAPM.

Khumalo’s lawyer, Barnabas Xulu, said at the time that the junior partners had been “forced to take this action” as the relationship had broken down completely.

“There has been an undermining of the BEE (black economic empowerment) component and an attempt to run the operation on a shoestring budget,” he alleged.

The Department of Mineral Resources had attempted mediation but Golden Haven did not turn up, leaving BEK “no other choice”, he added.

There are nearly 300 active mines in the North West province of South Africa, the sector contributing 31 per cent to the nation’s gross domestic product.

Thousands of families rely on the income earned on these mines, with about 18 per cent of total employment in the region coming from mining.