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ActionSA, through our Parliamentary Leader Athol Trollip MP, has written to the Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, to renew our years-long appeal for the retrieval of the bodies of Solomon Nyirenda, Pretty Mkambule, and Yvonne Mnisi, in accordance with the Minister’s most recent undertakings.

The three mineworkers lost their lives when the container they were working in sank during an implosion on 5 February 2016, more than nine years ago. They left behind grieving families who have endured years of pain, clinging to the unfulfilled promise that the remains of their loved ones would be retrieved. Like the families of those who died in the anti-apartheid struggle and other recent tragedies, they too deserve the dignity of a proper burial and the closure that comes with it.

Following Minister Gwede Mantashe’s recent promise, ActionSA has temporarily suspended our independent initiative to retrieve the container. We had already secured permission from the Business Rescue Practitioners to access the mine and engage mine rescue experts for proposals and quotations for the successful retrieval of Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi, and Solomon Nyirenda.

We are prepared to give the Minister 60 days to honour his promise. Should he fail to do so, ActionSA will have no choice but to proceed independently. Such a failure would further expose government’s continued insensitivity toward the plight of poor South Africans, particularly black citizens.

Minister Mantashe has, on numerous occasions, promised that his department would facilitate the retrieval of the bodies of Nyirenda, Nkambule, and Mnisi. These undertakings have consistently been communicated to the affected families, who continue to wait in anguish.

ActionSA, which has stood by and supported these families throughout, calls on Minister Mantashe to urgently provide full details of his department’s plan to give effect to this long-overdue commitment.

Issued by ActionSA President Herman Mashaba