swaziland3

an interview with thuli mahama

extracta mining company

A coal mine in Swaziland owned by the American company, Koch Industries, suffered a serious explosion. Within three days, on discovering how many workers had been killed and injured, the company declared itself insolvent. This was very strange for such a large US organisation. Compensating the victims and clearing the damage from the explosion would have been an insignificant fraction of their worldwide earnings.

Extracta aquired the mine and were then granted a licence having promised to implement new safety standards. After a year of operation we started reading of a lot of accidents showing they were not adhering to the safety, health and environmental standards. For example explosives that should have been disposed of safely were discarded and picked up by a local child who was partially blinded when they exploded. There were instances of several employees dying in a short space of time. Things were going wrong.

In our discussions with trade union representatives we found there was an average of two workers dying each month. The mine management insisted all were dying of HIV/AIDS. Given the working conditions the miners were in great danger as they had to work, underground, with no protective clothing. Each shift lasted ten hours, with no break, in a noisy, dirty environment. As the coal needs to be washed they are forced to stand in foul water the whole time.

In another Extracta operation, a ferro-vanadium conversion plant, vanadium mined in South Africa is processed in Swaziland. This part of the process was transferred when South African trade unions forced Extracta to compensate workers who were infected with vanadium poisoning.

Having informed our government that this was dangerous, they still allowed the company to operate as they needed the investment. In discussions with Extracta we insisted they have adequate health systems in place. Six months later when we tested a sample of the workers we found they were exposed to vanadium pentoxide levels of up to 15 times the international safety threshold.

Both the company and the government were made aware of this but some workers still fell sick and subsequently died. Eventually the company informed us that the market for vanadium had fallen (this was not reflected in the annual report, which showed an increase in prices). During these discussions they dismissed all their workforce and replaced them with new labour.

The workers are being poisoned, discarded and then replaced at will. Extracta employ 650 workers in their mine which makes them an important employer in our country. Our negotiations have not been successful so we are now gathering scientific proof to present to a court of law. One of our previous campaigns is awaiting presentation to the courts. The Shamrock group has been discharging effluent into a local river turning it into a sewer. This has destroyed the local community’s fresh water source and killed the fish living there. The company wants to install bore holes for drinking water. This will not bring back the fish!