R5bn silicosis settlement approval welcomed

Mineral Resources Portfolio Committee chairperson Sahlulele Luzipo and the Minerals Council South Africa have welcomed the approval by the Gauteng High Court of a R5-billion settlement between gold mining companies and former employees who have contracted silicosis and tuberculosis (TB) after working in the country’s gold mines.

The settlement is between the Occupational Lung Disease Working Group, which represents African Rainbow Minerals, Anglo American South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony and Sibanye-Stillwater, and the settlement classes’ representatives, as well as the settlement classes’ law firms Richard Spoor, Abrahams Kiewitz and the Legal Resources Centre

The settlement is expected to bring an end to the drawn-out class action case, with Luzipo stating on Friday that the settlement “should set an example for future claims to be expedited because the current victory came after many of the workers have died”.

“We believe that justice has finally prevailed and that, going forward, mining companies should always put the safety of workers first in order to prevent diseases that could potentially occur long after retirement,” Luzipo said while commending the efforts of the legal team that represented the victims and families of the deceased.

Minerals Council CEO Roger Baxter, in a separate statement, said the settlement agreement was “a product of more than four years of engagement between the parties”.

He added that the council had been an integral part of the broader process, especially in ensuring that the current compensation systems that fall under the Medical Bureau of Occupational Disease (MBOD) received additional financialand in-kind support.

Meanwhile, in a separate statement on Friday, AngloGold Ashanti said class members needed to be given the opportunity to opt out of the settlement before the start of the Tshiamiso Trust’s operations in administering claims and payments to eligible claimants.

This, the miner explained, was “because the agreement acknowledges that no individual can be forced to forego his or her right to pursue litigation should he or she so choose”.

Over the course of the next few weeks, court-approved notices would be published to inform class members of their right to opt out.

These would be published and broadcast repeatedly for four weeks, AngloGold Ashanti said, adding that class members would then have an additional 60 days to submit their opt-out forms, if they so wished.

The miner also warned that class members should not sign any opt-out forms if they wanted to benefit from the settlement.

Once the opt-out period is over, and the settlement agreement becomes effective, the Tshiamiso Trust will start implementing the settlement.

Settlement implementation will include the tracking and tracing of class members, processing submitted claims and the undertaking of benefit medical examinations, as well as the payment of benefits to eligible claimants.

While Baxter cited the settlement as an “historic outcome”, he said that continuing to ensure that no employee contract silicosis, while implementing intensive programmes to identify and treat TB, as well as ensuring that the statutory compensation under the MBOD was accessible and paid timeously, was “even more important”.

The alignment of mineworker compensation systems and the implementation of the settlement trust would also be priorities.