Death may cost mines millions

Court has to decide whether Aids killed mineworker.

Three years ago, 34-year-old Mozambican José Mulungo Cossa died after an accident in a platinum mine near Rustenburg.

But whether he died of his injuries or Aids is a question on which the Pretoria High Court will have to rule in a hearing on a complicated legal battle with major implications for the mining industry.

Anglo Platinum, whose subsidiary Rustenburg Platinum Mines employed Cossa, faces a R15 000 increase in its safety levies for each of the next three years, should the court agree with the Department of Minerals and Energy that Cossa's death was "work related".

However, far more than R45 000 and any financial obligations to Cossa's beneficiaries are at stake if he is deemed to have died as the result of an injury suffered at work.

Anglo Platinum fears that should the court rule that Cossa's death was a work-related fatality, it would make the company liable for a financial burden running into hundreds of millions of rands. Mines have to pay out much more if a miner dies on the job than of disease.

Some 23%, or 30 280 of Anglo Platinum's 134 000 workers are HIV positive, according to news service, Health-e.

If any of these miners should die of work-related injuries, the financial implications for the company could run into tens of millions of rands if the company's court bid fails.

A letter written by an Anglo Platinum official which came before the court in an earlier hearing suggests that HIV/Aids is having a devastating effect at the company's mines.

"Statistics indicate that 404 people will die of Aids" at Rustenburg Platinum in 2000 alone, according to mine official J F S Ungerer.

"I am appealing to the state to give management permission to test all employees for Aids," Ungerer wrote. "At present we are sending sick people underground on a daily basis. They place themselves and people who assist them after injury at great risk. If we test them, we can treat them and assist them to live longer and make their lives more bearable."

According to papers before the court, Cossa was born in Xai-Xai, Mozambique, in 1966 and employed in February 2000, after passing a medical examination.

On September 6 2000 Cossa, a stope team leader, was injured in an accident below ground, at the Rustenburg Platinum Mine's Turffontein shaft.

Cossa hurt his knee after a rope became coiled around his leg. When a winch was engaged, the tightening rope trapped Cossa's leg, causing painful injuries for which he was taken to hospital.

Twenty-five days later, according to a death certificate , Cossa died of "bronchopneumonia, due to [or as a consequence of] Aids, due to [or as a consequence of] his injured right knee".

Only after the accident was Cossa diagnosed as being HIV-positive.

A Department of Minerals and Energy report found that Cossa suffered "torn ligaments and a cut artery and was treated in hospital, for these injuries were not considered to be life-threatening". However, his condition deteriorated and he died on October 1 as a result of multiple organ failure.

The report noted that Cossa's death could have a "huge impact" on the mining industry.

Mavis Hermanus, the department's chief inspector of mines and the first respondent at Tuesday's hearing, ruled in January 2001 that Cossa's death should be recorded as a work-related fatality in Rustenburg Platinum Mines' official safety record.

This decision meant that safety levies for the mine would be rated more highly than before and that the mine would owe compensation to Cossa's family in Maputo.

Anglo Platinum objected to Hermanus's ruling but she refused to reconsider her decision.

Cossa "was considered fit to work underground and the fact that he was suffering from a pre-existing medical condition does not mean he was in any immediate danger of dying," she ruled.

Hermanus's ruling was upheld by the Labour Court, setting the stage for the matter to be heard by the Pretoria High Court.