GIVING SMALLERSCALE MINERS A VOICE

Surface mining industry association ASPASA has adopted new and streamlined services, especially for smaller-scale surface mines, in order for them to better manage challenges and profit from opportunities as they arise.

“Your voice when it matters most” is being adopted as the ASPASA team’s slogan, so that it’s taken to heart and used continuously throughout their engagements with members at all times.

“We started with a membership survey in December last year to determine the service needs of our members. The resultant input was to move away from ASPASA’s original 18 focus areas, to just seven,” says newly appointed executive director Letisha van den Berg.

The seven areas include:

■ Legal – including opinion, updates, and royalties.

■ Safety and health – including audits, physical and mental health, training, and transport.

■ Environmental – including audits and training.

■ Technical – including audits.

■ Engineering – including ECSA.

■ Women in mining – including all aspects.

■ Liaison – includes internal (members) and external (government, MHSC, MINCOSA, junior/emerging mines, illegal mining, security, media, and other associations).

“In addition, we identified that training and development of our young members is an important factor and took the decision to bring back a process that had worked very well in the past and that is to manage all training through the Institute of Quarrying,” she says.

“Another key change will be the addition of a steering committee to help streamline specific regional issues and make dissemination of information easier.”

The new team has already hit the ground running, with valuable engagements in ground vibrations, noise air blast and fly rock dra Code of Practice, royalty updates and the way forward.

“ASPASA is looking forward to our future engagements with our members and external liaisons to make a positive contribution towards the small surface mining industry and to add value to all our members,” she says.