Parliament has to intervene on BCL
Dithapelo Keorapetse | Thursday March 24, 2016 11:25
BCL mine workers’ salaries have been paid late for many months presumably because the mine is experiencing cash flow problems. The causes of the financial crisis are reportedly by and large attributed to imprudent management and improper planning and less by the fall of commodity prices in the international market especially the slow growth of the Chinese economy. Reports from the mine workers are that monthly payments to creditors deducted from their salaries appear to have been effected but the money doesn’t reach the concerned financial institutions. In other words, pays lips show deductions but banks and other creditors complain to workers about failure to pay monthly instalments. The effect of this is that it leaves a bad debt record for the workers and ruin future relations. Some allowances such as utilities allowances are erratically paid by the mine.
There are also lamentations about the decline of occupational health and safety standards; many workers have died and seriously injured in the recent past in mine accidents. In one case there is actually an inquest. Last year during winter season there was a big smelter refurbishment of the smelter plant. The delay in completion of the project is also cited for exacerbating the company’s financial difficulties. However, there are currently problems with the smelter as it is not properly functioning and the associated costs are huge; the repair and delays in smelting.
The mine is one of the worst employers in the country. Other than slave wages and general poor conditions of service, it violates Labour laws, including Collective Labour Agreements with the unions, with impunity. Notwithstanding the crises, it took intense campaign for the unions to finally meet the management. Workers lament that they usually see their management on TV or newspapers only and wonder why they are never addressed on the problems besieging the mine. Workers are retrenched fraudulently through unfair dismissals.
BCL has some of the worst exploitative work contracts; there are many who are employed on temporary basis but do jobs which are normally done by full-time employees on long-term contracts, for instance machine operators. These workers can work for up to five years at six month intervals or contracts. The idea is to cut costs associated with long-term contracts and exploit the readily available labour in the market. Some of this category of workers have been injured and some have died and naturally their compensations are near to nothing. The number of foreigners working at the mine is also a problem, they are many when one considers the levels of unemployment and underemployment in the country. Some are of skills which are available locally.
The Polaris II strategy is suspected by some to be a big fraud, an unprecedented bonanza for a few corporate oligarchs. A lot of money has been wasted in risky undertakings such as exploration. The exercise has cost the mine a colossal amount of money with no return on investment to show. It was high risk experiment for a struggling company like BCL. Pula Steel may be a big fraud; it is unclear how the plant is expected to survive under the current circumstances of low prices of steel, the stockpiles in the market and Chinese imports.
Even the captain of steel has closed down several of his plants across the world. How then does a small plant producing low quantity and quality of steel billets expected to survive? Where would it be selling? Some local industries needing steel are skeptical about the quality of steel from Phikwe, they can’t ascertain its quality and prefer imports instead. The company is now financially struggling as workers are sometimes paid late and this is also draining resources from BCL.
Pula Steel may be a big scam which must be investigated, it may actually being another “Palapye Glass Project” or “Morupule B”. Why would a company like BCL seek to diversify its portfolio when it can’t meet its core and immediate financial obligations? This is a question people are raising with regard to Polaris II Strategy. Some reports from Pula Steel are too scary. There are allegations of corruption, economic crime and mismanagement at BCL. The DCEC has admitted to receiving numerous reports and investigating some cases involving individuals and companies at the mine. Most allegations relate to procurement and the Polaris II ventures or projects. There are also reported cases of wasteful, flashy and extravagant expenditure by the management. Some services are unjustifiably outsourced to enrich a few. The mine owns a corporate jet aircraft. This is too much luxury for a company that can barely pay its workers.
Recently, the management behavior has degenerated to acts of delinquency. Following the maintenance of cages/conveyors transporting miners deep into the shafts, dangerous occurrences ensued including but not limited to scary chirruping sound on the guides/rails, fire sparks and smell of burning metal, jamming of the cages, strained ropes and or kink were noticed by the miners.
The management didn’t swiftly report these dangerous occurrences to the Department of Mines/engineer/inspector pursuant to Section 37 of the Mine, Quarries, Works and Machinery Act. When workers protested boarding an unsafe and dysfunctional cage, they were booked for indiscipline of “rioting behavior leading to loss of production”, effectively accused of staging an illegal strike. This is not only prejudicial and malicious, it is also duplicitous and criminal. Close to three hundred workers were charged and scheduled for disciplinary action.
The whole idea is to reduce the workforce through various unorthodox ways. Mine workers are pleading with Parliament to institute a commission of inquiry or a forensic audit on BCL to assess how and why the mine got into this predicament and what can be done. The mine bosses can no longer be trusted to explain and chat the way forward. The board is useless, the mine is collapsing under their watch and it is not surprising because some board members are sinking other public enterprises into deeper crises at other towns. Parliament should therefore intervene urgently to avert more problems and to save jobs at BCL.