House Chair, the plight of Thulani Ndlovu and his three siblings since the death of their father who was a mineworker at Kriel Colliery Mine in Mpumalanga near Witbank is heartbreaking.
The treatment of our people by mining companies in South Africa is still inhumane, cruel and senseless. White monopoly capital and profit has taken precedence at the expense of the poor people. Mining companies should treat our people with dignity, and we should not see what we are seeing happening now under the current ANC government. You can't differentiate between the ANC government and the National Party. Since the passing of Thulani's father in 1994, life has been extremely difficult for him and his siblings, with no intervention from the side of the government. His father died of septicaemia aspiration pneumonia, which is a disease linked to mining operations. He had worked for this mine since 1982 as a boilermaker without any life-changing benefits.
Many of our people enter the mining sector as healthy employees and their health degenerates as the years progress. Thousands of mineworkers around the country suffer from mining-acquired diseases such as tuberculosis, arthritis and many other mining-related diseases. Our people are not even compensated under these circumstances and the ANC government is doing nothing to protect the mineworkers. Many of the mining companies in South Africa do not adhere to occupational health safety standards. [Time expired.]