"AngloGold says mass safety audits debilitate its mines", 15 Aug 2016

[The] CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, has added his voice to criticism that the South African government is wrongly applying safety-related audits and checks...The South African government is able to shut down mining operations while it conducts investigations in the event of a mine accident by applying Section 54 of the Mine Health and Safety Act. Section 55 of the act allows it to shut down a part of the mine...[He] said that of the 77 Section 54 notices applied at its South African mines in the first seven months of the year, only six related to fatalities. The rest flowed from procedural “mass audits” the scale and intensity of which had significantly increased, he said...Jean Nel, CEO of Sibanye Gold’s platinum division, identified Section 54 stoppages as among the factors that was making it harder to mine in the North West province – a view shared across the South African mining sector. “We have lost R135m in revenue at Kroondal to Section 54 stoppages which is staggering,” he said...Lonmin said it had lost 243,000 tonnes of ore during the third quarter after two employees died...