Quarry Southern Africa January 2019 | Page 30

FACE TO FACE organisations, whereas in the past a single quarry in, say, Pofadder would survive at the whim of the local market and if there was no local construction taking place its survival would be under threat. “Larger groups have the ability to re-assign resources to where the work is happening,” says Pienaar. Along with this evolution, says Pienaar, is the greater professionalism of quarries. “Today, you can’t run a quarry simply on the basis that you know how to drill and blast; staff need to be trained and it is for this reason that skills development is a major focus of Aspasa. The quarry manager today has to be a top salesperson, a lawyer and economist and a motor mechanic, on top of the traditional skills. The law over the past few years has got to the point where a mine has to be managed by an appropriate manager because if you don’t operate according to the law you will be closed down.” Another problem, however, is that the illegal operation down the street does not get closed down. Illegal operations constitute one of the greatest challenges to the quarry industry, representing unfair competition. “The minerals under the ground are not owned by the property holder, they are owned by the state which is why we have the Royalty Act in terms of which aggregates and sand are defined minerals for which miners need a license and pay the state a royalty to remove it from the ground. Construction companies, for instance, know they require a mining license to build, say, a local road – a license which is only for that project. Nonetheless, sometimes they sell some of the surplus aggregate to the local hardware store and effectively start operating as a quarry and this unfair competition is one of the biggest problems we face,” says Pienaar. “There is no political will to shut them down, and the result is a two-tier industry.” The smaller mining industry has been bombarded with the same legislation that applies to large mines. “The regulator does not seem to pay attention to the illegal operations and over the past 10 years or so, the issue has worsened. Words like victimisation, bullying, corrupt, dishonest and incompetence are frequently bandied about, even to describe those working in companies. Some employers obtain a license to mine, but thereafter don’t adhere to the rules. There are no consequences and so it becomes the norm that if one does not get caught out, then why change? However, over the past few months there has been a remarkable change in attitude from all parties.” 28_QUARRY SA| JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 The need for qualifications A major focus of Aspasa, on top of auditing, is skills development. “There are a number of routes you can go down to become a quarry mine manager: you can go the technical route; the operational route; or the engineering route. This variation means you have quite different types of people becoming quarry managers. Managers generally acquire diverse skills on the job over the years, but one critical skill they all require is understanding of the law. Mining law is onerous and the consequences of contravening the law can be closure of the mine, which is extremely costly.” Aspasa does a substantial amount of training on applicable law – primarily the Mine Health and Safety Act. The challenge regarding skills development in South Africa is the disparity between university education and anything below, explains Pienaar. The difficulty is that the industry is too small to develop its own qualification programme. There is a distance learning diploma available via the UK’s University of Derby, but with law being a significant component of the curriculum English law needs to be converted to South African law, including mining and environmental legislation. “The need for qualification arose due to the fact that in 2016 a fifth of the section 54s (the Inspector’s right to close operations) issued is for poor supervision. In addition, the number of fatalities in mining has increased over the past two years (although not in quarries, where there has been zero fatalities in that two-year period). We have a course known as PLOC (planning, leading, organising and controlling) delivered by a third party, which addresses the skills needed to supervise a quarry. Skills development and training coordination is a major focus of Aspasa at the moment, and reflects the great need for skills throughout South Africa.” Prospects for 2019 The downturn in the South African construction, building and aggregates sector in 2018 is not necessarily a factor of the industry itself but broader global conditions. Quarries do not have the sort of operational challenges that deep mines do, and Pienaar believes the increase in sales of commercial vehicles in late 2018 points to an underlying optimism in the country. In South Africa the industry can be divided into construction of infrastructure; and building homes and smaller infrastructure. Building as a sector is performing well in tandem with the increasing number of shopping malls being built; but construction is an under- performer at the moment. “There are pockets of development going on, depending on where you’re located. The amount of work is on a par with last year, but where the work is going is evolving from the Big Five to smaller, black-owned businesses. “In May last year I attended the Global Aggregate Information Network (GAIN) in Barcelona, and generally the aggregate business throughout the world is slow and has not fully recovered from the global recession of 2008. Infrastructure construction seems to have been placed on the back-burner globally. Locally, I believe the economy will continue to be slow, for the reason that we’re approaching elections in May: it is typically the case that a year before elections and six months after not much happens in the way of decision- making and investment. “The SOEs will have to be cleaned out, but once that occurs there will be confidence in this country’s economy. Confidence makes people build stuff. When there’s confidence, the first step is for building plans to get passed, and the second is that quarries receive orders so that concrete can be made for the foundations,” says Pienaar. The wrap Aspasa has a new brand which reflects a diverse membership base that has expanded during 2018 to include other opencast sectors of the mining industry. As such, it is no longer known as the Aggregate and Sand Producers Association, but rather simply retains the Aspasa acronym. “The move is necessary to accommodate growing numbers of open cast mining operations seeking assistance with compliance to health, safety and environmental legislation, as well as a strong requirement for improved quality of management. “It has been a 20-year journey that was not planned, was not foreseen, but which has nonetheless been enjoyable. The learning curve has been steep with great individuals who challenge, who share issues and are committed to the industry and have assisted along the way. I hope the next few years will be even better. “There is still a huge amount of work to do to ensure value. The future of Aspasa looks promising: we just need to get through the present economic hurdle,” says Pienaar. 