South Africa’s gold and platinum miners are racing to bring back thousands of skilled migrant workers who are crucial to ramping up output following the easing of the nation’s coronavirus lockdown.
For almost 150 years, South Africa’s deep-level mines relied on cheap labour from neighbouring Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Botswana. They still account for about 10% of the industry’s 450,000-strong workforce, and their skills are key to rebooting the nation’s mines.
That’s pushing producers to undertake a huge logistics operation to bus thousands of migrant workers back from their homes, where they sought refuge during the pandemic. After journeys of often more than 500 kilometres (310 miles), those employees will be quarantined for 14 days in hostels and hotels close to the mines.
The stakes are high for South Africa, after the coronavirus piled on economic woes after almost a decade of mismanagement and corruption under former President Jacob Zuma. With the government forecasting the economy to contract as much as 16.1% this year, there’s increasing pressure for a rapid turnaround in mining, one of the nation’s biggest exporters.
Mining companies have asked the government to reopen more border posts with Mozambique and Lesotho to speed the transit of returning workers, said Nikisi Lesufi, an executive for industry lobby group, the Minerals Council of South Africa. So far, only 250,000 of miners are back at work.
SOURCE: Bloomberg
