The Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA) and its partners have written to multiple Portfolio Committees of Parliament, demanding mining companies be held accountable for systemic failures in mine closures, financial provisioning, and corporate accountability.
The union has used recent deaths and danger posed by the Heidedal (Witherow Dam) Quarry in the Free State.
Christopher Rutledge, from the MACUA WAMUA Advice Office, wrote the letter.
Rutledge included a forensic timeline in the letter, to raise concerns about the hazardous and unrehabilitated site, despite the company given a closure certificate.
“This intervention builds on a formal Petition lodged by MACUA & WAMUA on 26 November 2025, in which we called on Parliament to undertake a comprehensive inquiry into systemic failures in mine closure, financial provisioning, and corporate accountability. That Petition raised evidence from multiple mining-affected communities indicating how regulatory weaknesses and enforcement gaps are enabling the evasion or externalisation of environmental and safety liabilities, often leaving communities to bear the consequences” wrote Rutledge.
He also said Parliament must ask how was the mine effectively “closed” while remaining unsafe?
Why were financial guarantees released before rehabilitation was complete?
Did liability get shifted away from responsible parties through a nominal-value transaction(R100), leaving communities to carry the risk?
“For the residents of Heidedal, this is not an abstract governance issue, it is a lived reality of loss, danger, and abandonment.”
The union is of the view that deaths at Heidedal were preventable.
Picture: Supplied