Durban - Assmang needed to improve communication between its blue-collar workers and management to avoid incidents such as the explosion that killed five people at the weekend, Patrice Motsepe, the executive chairman of listed African Rainbow Minerals, said yesterday.
Motsepe, whose company owns 50 percent of the manganese producer, demanded that Assmang's managers ensure that accidents such as Sunday's explosion at its Cato Ridge plant did not recur and that they improved their relationship with employees.
"It is clear that the relationship between management and the workers at grass roots levels has to be improved," he said. "If the lives of the workers are in danger, then a company should not continue to operate because no life will be sacrificed in the name of making profits."
Motsepe visited Cato Ridge Works to comfort hundreds of workers the day after a furnace explosion claimed five lives.
He said appropriate action would be taken once investigations into accidents at the plant had been concluded. There were different perceptions on the cause of the latest accident, which was similar to an incident two months ago in which one person was killed.
In 2006 an explosion killed two people and in 1997 a furnace manager was injured in an explosion at the same furnace that blew up on Sunday.
"We can't tolerate that, we will not tolerate it," Motsepe said.
The department of labour said a preliminary report into Sunday's accident had been submitted to labour minister Membathisi Mdladlana, but it could not say when the investigation would be finalised. The probe into the December incident is also yet to be finalised.
"Unfortunately these things are not in our hands but before the end of the week, we'll have an idea of the progress being made," Motsepe said.
The department of labour said it would be in a position to give answers today on the 1997 and 2006 incidents.
Production has been halted at the plant and Motsepe said it was too soon to say how much Assmang was losing or when the plant would be reopened.
A public inquiry into the causes of manganism among Assmang workers also resumed in Cato Ridge yesterday.
- According to the International Manganese Institute, the chief uses of manganese are in steel products, portable batteries and aluminium beverage cans.
- About 90 percent of all manganese consumed goes into steel. World manganese reserves are estimated at several billion tons. Reserves of high grade ores, with more than 44 percent manganese content, are in the range of 680 million tons of ore.
- South Africa, Australia, Brazil and Gabon produce more than 90 percent of supplies. In 2006 South Africa's manganese ore exports were valued at R2.2 billion. - Samantha Enslin-Payne and Slindile Khanyile