Keorapetse calls for Mahupela�s axing
Innocent Selatlhwa | Wednesday June 1, 2016 14:55
Keorapetse, who has for long been raising BCL issues in Parliament, also wants minister Kitso Mokaila and the BCL Board to institute a commission of enquiry on occupational health and safety standards at BCL.
“The BCL general manager Daniel Mahupela must take full responsibility for what happened. Mokaila should relieve Mahupela of his duties; under him, BCL has sunk into financial crises and serious decline of health and safety standards,” he said.
He further said many retired miners are sickly of conditions caused and or aggravated by many years of working for the mine. He said almost all of them have not been compensated stating that BCL has shown no serious commitment to compensate these workers and assist with their healthcare.
Keorapetse has in the past raised concerns about the declining levels of occupational health and safety standards at BCL. He said there has been many deaths and injuries in the recent past and the situation is deteriorating unabated with deleterious impact.
“No single report, preliminary or full, of an accident has been made public. The management has failed on numerous occasions to account to the nation, the workers or unions and the people of Selebi-Phikwe on these accidents,” he said adding that recently miners refused to board faulty cages after being forced and were intimidated through frivolous and vexatious charges of “rioting behaviour leading to loss of production”. He said the BCL management failed to report a dangerous incident involving the same cages.
The legislator said he was deeply saddened by the untimely passing of the four miners and the injury of others. “I know how difficult this must be for the families, relatives and friends as well as co-workers and comrades of the departed miners. The bereaved are in my prayers. The deceased died in the line of duty whilst working towards the betterment of their country,” he said. Keorapetse said their untimely passing has robbed the country of productive and patriotic men who contributed immensely to the development of the country.
Botswana Mining Workers Union (BMWU) is contemplating writing to Mokaila explaining their displeasure at the manner in which he dealt with their case.
BMWU general secretary, Mbiganyi Ramokate told Mmegi that they recently met with Mokaila where they detailed their safety concerns at the BCL mine but were not taken seriously.
“The issue of faulty cages is not new as it once surfaced with the cage showing some defects. Instead of addressing the problem, management blamed workers for failing to go to work as they had challenged the safety of the cage.
Mokaila has since assured the nation that his ministry has initiated investigations on the accident to get to the root cause and will contract an independent safety auditor to look into safety.