A HWANGE Colliery Company (HCC) employee has been fired for writing a series of letters accusing the board and management of ignoring constructive criticism resulting in the colliery failing to meet production targets culminating in salary delays running into several months.
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Born Ndlovu, a mining engineer, last week wrote a three-paged damning letter accusing senior HCC management of being insensitive to the plight of workers by continuously turning a blind eye to key mining standards and procedures while suppressing value addition ideas.
“The management system in place at HCC empowers employees to add value to operations, but management’s rigidity inhibits and suppresses that. Once one adds value he/she is victimised,” Ndlovu wrote in his letter, which he personally distributed to members of the public within the colliery concession area.
He highlighted specific areas and issues which HCC management turned a blind eye to and allegedly putting the lives of workers at risk in the process.
“How can a mine like Three Main Underground (classified as fiery mine) go for months without stone dust, poor ventilation, continous miner cutting with blunt picks, pulling of live transformer underground using the continous miner, disconnecting methane sensor on the machine so that it does not trip when it detects methane gas (very explosive gas — Kamandama disaster 6 June 1972 where 427 miners perished underground) so as to maximise production?
“The continuous miner scrubber is not efficient; there is coal dust underground. Is this all not criminal?” queried Ndlovu.
He also took a dig at the board and management’s foreign travels.
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“The composition of people who go out to view is very questionable. Only top management and the board go out yet it is operational personnel who should be in the forefront.
“The number of meetings is alarming to the extent that employees regard them as a mere talk show.
“Meetings do not produce coal. Meetings should be brief, short and people released to go back to work on time not to drag the whole day with no results,” Ndlovu wrote.
He also questioned where the cash-strapped coal miner got funds to engage a management consultant to train top management on implementation of the balance score card system when employees were owed eight months’ salaries.
“Currently a consultant has been engaged to implement this system and he is smiling all the way to the bank while employees are owed eight to nine months salaries,” he wrote.
“How can we feed a stranger when our own children are hungry?”
Ndlovu also warned of the severity and gravity of opencast remnant underground fires which threaten mine infrastructure, tarred access road, a 33 kilovolt power line and an adjacent cemetery.
The fires are said to be advancing at an alarming rate with no action being taken.
He accused management of shooting down a proposal presented to contain the raging fire, which is now threatening the environment, people and wildlife.
“If the fire rage is unchecked, it will burn the cemetery and HCC will go down in history as breaking a record the world over for being the first mining company to burn graves.”
Ndlovu concluded his letter by challenging top management to walk the talk if they are to add value into mining. A disciplinary hearing was held last week and he was fired.
Contacted for comment, HCC spokesperson Burzil Dube requested questions in writing and had not responded by the time of going to print.
