Mine health and safety amendment gets green light

The Nedlac Executive Council has agreed to support an amendment to the Mine Health and Safety Act, which was promulgated in June last year.

After the Act's promulgation, business and labour in the mining industry appointed a technical committee to explore ways of ensuring the effective enforcement of the Act without resorting to the criminal procedures against employers that were provided for in subsections 86(2) and (3) of the Act.

The amendment provides for such procedures to be replaced by administrative penalties, in the form of fines, for certain breaches of the Act by employers. It also provides for the further operation of tripartite institutions, and for the participation of any health-and-safety representative responsible for a workplace in any inquiry into his or her workplace.