* Illegal miners stay underground for months
* Food ban targets supply line for illegal miners
By Ed Cropley
TWO KM BENEATH WELKOM, South Africa, July 25 (Reuters) – One
of South Africa’s biggest gold firms has taken the drastic step
of banning all food underground to cut supply lines to gangs of
illegal miners used to staying deep in the mines for months on
end, threatening lives and official production.
With gold mining around Welkom, 200 km (130 miles) south of
Johannesburg, dating back to the 1930s, the bedrock is
criss-crossed by a myriad network of tunnels that provide
perfect cover and multiple entry points for illegal miners.
Bosses of Harmony Gold’s 2.4 km deep Phakisa mine –
one of the world’s deepest – have tried blocking up old shafts
and installing stadium-style turnstiles at the top of the main
shaft to stop imposters slipping through.
In January this year, they tightened the screw by imposing a
total ban on food to prevent official miners bringing in
supplies to sell or give to their unofficial counterparts.
“There are two things you need to survive underground: food
and water. You can always get water down a mine but the food ban
has made a real difference,” Harmony chief executive Graham
Briggs told Reuters this week during a mine visit.
Unions agreed to the ban – as long as it was accompanied by
a free meal at the end of a shift – even though it means teams
of men will consume nothing but water during an eight-hour shift
pounding at the gold-bearing rock in sweltering heat.
Continued…
