While the trapped miner saga was back in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria on Thursday no finality has been reached in the case, as the government respondents cited in the urgent application have not yet filed their opposing papers.
A community-based organisation called the Mining Affected Community in Action (Macua) on Sunday obtained an urgent order that the community and volunteers may provide the trapped miners with necessities such as water, food, and medicine. This order was due to remain in force until Thursday.
Judge Nicolene Janse van Nieuwenhuizen, meanwhile, on Thursday ordered that the community is not allowed to bring paraffin, fuel, or diesel to the miners because this did not form part of her earlier court order.
The community is, however, only allowed to bring food to the trapped miners between eight am and 4pm to allow the expert rescue teams to do their work, the judge ordered.
She, meanwhile, gave the government respondents, which include various departments such as Minerals, to file their opposing papers by December 13.
The matter is due back in court on February 12. The judge, however, said the applicants can, in the meantime, again approach the court for urgent relief if necessary.
Macua, in an affidavit handed to court on Tuesday night, when it obtained a contempt of court order against the SAPS, said in spite of them being served with the court order, officials stationed at the Stilfontein Gold Mine refused to comply with the terms of the order by not allowing the community and voluntary organisations to send food down to the miners.
The SAPS denied this and said they do allow food to go down, although not in large quantities. They said it is unknown how many miners were trapped. The police were also concerned that three illegal mine bosses inside the mine took the food and distributed it as they wished.
Sabelo Mnguni, national administrator of Macua, said in an affidavit that the SAPS placed arbitrary limitations on the quantity of food that community members intended to lower down to the trapped miners, as well as the number of times food may be sent down.
Furthermore, certain essential food items, including maize meal, canned fish, and soup, were not allowed to be lowered down at all without any explanation.
There is no accurate information regarding the number of miners trapped underground, and therefore the limitations on the quantity of food and the number of times food may be sent down are unreasonable, Mnguni said.
“These restrictions are both unreasonable and unlawful, and go against the plain language of the court order.”
In addition to restricting certain food items, the SAPS also refused to permit the delivery of paracetamol and batteries for the miners' headlamps, the court was told.
Pretoria News