The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Community Safety in the North West, Freddy Sonakile, said they’re going to engage with other stakeholders, including the Treasury, to discuss whether the stand-off at the Stilfontein mine, should be declared a national disaster.
This as several illegal miners are still held underground, almost a month after food and water supplies were blocked from reaching them.
Sonakile led members of the committee at an oversight visit on Friday, where he highlighted that the police budget has already been stretched for the Stilfontein operation.
“The police and everyone are operating from the budget, that has already been released.
There’s no special budget that has been set aside for this.
“We are the lawmakers, we are the ones who release the money.
That is why we had to ask them questions to say, on this operation you had to stretch your budget, are you winning and where they wanted us to come in.
We’re going to call the treasury and all stakeholders, to say what do we do now, do we need to declare disaster so that there’s additional funding and additional humans to support,” asked Sonakile.
Moreover, Sonakile said it’s not only the police budget that has been stretched, but of all government’s departments as their money had to be diverted to the Stilfontein operation.
Sonakile emphasized that they would ensure that the miners human rights are respected.
This following Thursday’s announcement by the police that food and water supplies were last sent to the miners on Sunday.
“Our role here is to say who is supposed to give them food.
And if they’ve not been getting food, we would go to the people who are supposed to be giving them food and talk to them.
But as a committee our stance is that we’re dealing with human beings here, whether South African or not, so they must be treated that way.
The main aim is to retrieve them from underground, so that they must face the wrath of the law,” warned Sonakile.
He said the committee was briefed that the retrieval of the zama zamas will officially commence on Monday.
Police confirmed earlier this week that a cage would be sent underground to retrieve the illegal miners.