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.