BCL blames accident on dead employees

Onalenna Kelebeile | Tuesday August 4, 2015 15:34

 

The three employees allegedly breached safety procedures that may have led to their untimely deaths.

The mine’s communications and public relations manager, James Molosankwe said the mine has realised that whenever there is an incident, a procedure or policy would have been infringed upon.

This was also stated by the mine’s managing director, Daniel Mahupela, during the last press conference in Selebi-Phikwe.  Molosankwe noted that incidents are largely, “a result of indiscipline, failure to instill discipline and taking shortcuts.  We further note that some incidents are a result of ‘at-risk’ behaviours hence the introduction of Behaviour Based Care Model last year”.

The model is a systematic approach to promote reduction of at-risk behaviour that causes many incidents and injuries.  Molosankwe said this comes after the realisation that management can do more to prevent employees from getting injured.  He added that the trend of fatalities in the mine is a cause for concern as BCL has previously recorded four million fatality-free shifts and has achieved a significant reduction in lost time injury frequency rate, which stood at 0.38 for the year 2014.

“All employees have the right to decline to work in unsafe areas and it will be highly irresponsible for anyone in a position of command to issue instructions that compromise the mine’s safety standards. BCL steadfastly strive to take safety seriously and work diligently to create the best possible work environment for all employees,” he added.

On accusations of mine management failing to ensure the safety of their employees, Molosankwe said such charges are unjustified and unfounded.

“I dismiss such accusations as baseless, malicious and seriously misleading.  I do not want to believe that the mine management takes a by-stand attitude, especially in a mining operation that we know has got a lot of risks,” he added.

He added that Selebi Shaft employs the sub-level open stopes mining method, which is a no entry mining method. As such, workers are strictly prohibited from entering that area.

“Any work under this method is carried out by a man-free remotely operated machinery and it is inherently safe.

The method was deployed in 1991 following a thorough investigative research of its safety implications and operational efficiency,” he added. 

He further noted that following the previous fatalities the mine has implemented targeted interventions such as enforcing compliance with drilling procedures.   In this way, procedure briefings are done and planned task observation is intensified to check compliance to procedures.

He added that the interventions are implemented to ensure that safety transgressions are promptly investigated and wrongdoers held accountable.

The mine has also sensitised its employees to increase their focus on leading indicators and has intensified safety, health and environment (SHE) training and refresher courses as well as on the job training.

Molosankwe added that the Department of Mines shares its reports following any incident at the mine and said the reports have recommendations and sanctions, which are legally enforceable and are complied with and implemented.

“The mine’s managing director updates Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU) on safety and health issues regularly and employees also receive this feedback even during shift mass meetings.

This is not only done following fatal incidents, but also includes lost time injuries,” he added.

On concerns that reports on investigations into the fatal accidents are never availed to the union, Molosankwe said custodians of those reports are Department of Mines. 

Mine management, he said, are just subjects of investigations therefore Molosankwe believes that logically it is not the mine that is responsible to avail such.  He dismissed suspicions of collusion between mine management and the Department of Mines.  He further noted that there is a safety and health agreement that was signed between mine management and BMWU that fosters joint responsibility of parties, augments the BCL SHE policy and spells out roles and responsibilities of management and employees with regards to safety.

The mine has lost six employees in mine accidents this year alone.

BMWU general secretary, Bob Malele this week said that the union maintains that management is wrong because the area where the accident occurred is a high risk one and nobody should have been allowed to go there.

“We believe that safety is the responsibility of every employee, but there must be supervisors to ensure that all procedures are adhered to,” he said.

He said they believe that as the union they are viewed as stakeholders and since they participate in the enquiry into the accidents they must be issued with reports on the findings of the investigation.

“We are told that the law does not allow that we be given the reports.  We have been told that we can only be granted them through a court of law.

We have even approached the Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Kitso Mokaila to no avail,” he said.

He added that they have also been told that only parents of accident victims can be given such reports on request and said they encourage parents to always demand that report.

 “We cannot go to court to demand the report because we know how the whole system works. However, we cannot rule out that possibility in future,” he said.