[ad_1]
Herman Mashaba with relatives of deceased Lily Mine workers and spokesperson for the families and mine workers. Image: Palesa Dlamini / City Press
NEWS
The government lied when it deemed the container that buried the bodies of three miners unrecoverable during a mining accident at the Lily mine in Mpumalanga in 2016.
These were the sentiments expressed by former Johannesburg city mayor and chairman of the newly formed ActionSA party, Herman Mashaba, during a press conference in Sandton on Wednesday.
The briefing was held precisely to give an update on the legal team formed by Mashaba in January to assist the relatives of the three miners, Yvonne Mnisi, Pretty Nkambule and Solomon Nyerende who, on February 5, 2016, were buried in the mine when the entrance to the Lily mine shaft collapsed.
READ: Herman Mashaba: Camping for justice with nothing to celebrate
Mashaba criticized the 2018 report from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) containing recommendations to the National Director of the Public Ministry (NDPP) for a prosecution decision related to the mine accident that killed the three workers.
The department and the mine have been using the excuse that the container is unrecoverable, so the initial rescue attempt was canceled and there have been no further attempts to exhume the bodies.
“We have been lied to for so long … to this day I find it extremely strange that the DMRE can cover up a private company … We have contacted numerous departments and entities to try to get the report on the mining disaster. , but all of our attempts failed until our legal team requested that the Access to Information Promotion Act of 2000 be invoked to obtain the document.
No recovery is mentioned
Herman Mashaba
“In the report, no irrecoverable is mentioned … The decision to consider the container to be irrecoverable, while certainly based on something, was not based on a professional assessment of the mine,” Mashaba said.
He reiterated that the DMRE report does not refer to any investigation into the recoverability of the Lily Mine container, “however, it concludes that it is irrecoverable.”
He said that such a finding was a lie conceived by the department to deceive the families, the media and the people of South Africa.
Mashaba continued to question why the government would continue to “mislead” the public and the families of the deceased miners, and promised the relatives of the three miners that his legal team was now in the process of “putting together a legal strategy” that they would use when take the matter to court.
He said the court case will most likely occur early next year.
“For the government, if you are counting on me not keeping my promise to the Lily Mine people or losing interest in this matter, you are wrong, because I will not stop until justice is done,” Mashaba said.
Harry Mazibuko, a representative of the former Lily Mine miners and their families, lamented the government’s inaction and said they had failed the deceased miners.
We have infrastructure and government departments occupied by people who are not willing to serve the citizens of the country.
Harry Mazibuko, a representative of the former Lily Mine miners
“South Africa currently has no government, we have government infrastructure and departments occupied by people who are not willing to serve the citizens of the country.”
He thanked Mashaba, saying that before his party’s intervention they had been neglected and even attacked by the police for occupying the mine facilities.
“It has been 513 days since we started camping outside the mine [after three years of inaction]. Instead of receiving help, our government, through law enforcement officers, attacked us and called us illegal invaders.
READ: Herman Mashaba targets 18 million new voters
“We have more questions than answers from our government and we even told the government that they were not helping us because we were willing to recover the bodies ourselves. Almost five years have passed and they still block our attempts, ”said Mazibuko.
A very emotional Sifiso Nkambule, Pretty Nkambule’s brother, said that, to this day, his family was suffering greatly.
“Every time someone talks about Lily Mine we feel pain. More than five years have passed and we still have not been able to bury our sister.
“There are young children and they keep asking where their parents are,” Nkambule said.
|
||||||
 |
