benoni executive summary Essay examples - 615 Words

Benoni Executive Summary The â€Å"Benoni Mine Incident† is a situation that encompasses an episodic case of illegal mining that took place in South Africa. A rescue operation was set in motion in February of 2014 at an abandoned mine shaft near Johannesburg in attempt to rescue a number of illegal mine workers. It was first thought they were trapped due to a rockslide, but was later revealed that a rival crew of illegal miners had trapped them in there. In the beginning reports first suggested that there were 200 trapped and were later estimated to it actually being 30. After several miners were rescued, word had gotten back to the rest of the miners below that they were being arrested and the remaining illegal workers refused to leave†¦show more content†¦South Africa’s Chamber of Mines, an industry association, estimates that South Africa loses about 5% of its potential annual mineral production to illegal mining, the los production estimates at $2 billion. There are few machine s that can do the work of a miner so it mainly dependent on human physical labor and of course it comes with many dangerous risks. The majority of the illegal miners make up of immigrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho or other central and southern African nations that come to South Africa in hopes of hitting the jackpot or at least make a living for their families. Some of the miners who are South African work for legit companies in the day and at night do a little side work under the table off the books which is illegal. One of the main causes of the increase in illegal miners is that it takes a long while to receive a legal permit from the government to work legally, thus many of these individuals don’t have the luxury or time to wait around as they need money desperately. Mining companies in the country face a lot of pressure globally and locally, globally stagnant or falling commodity prices, and growing nationalism over a nation’s extractive resources. The companies face an uncertain regulatory environment, rising demands by government, potential labor unrest and shrinking margins. Local police are normally sent out to regulate in the mining areas, but are often outnumbered and outmatched by the heavily armed