**7. Health and safety compliance literature within the South African mining industry**

The South African mining industry does not have a good reputation for health and safety due to recurrent accidents and fatalities. One of the largest mining companies in SA with a major interest in both platinum and gold mining (Sibanye) outlined that one of the causes of fatalities was non-compliance by miners and management as people try to take shortcuts [45]. On the contrary, the union representatives within the mining industry blame the high pressure to reach production targets means that miners remain in unsafe working conditions and environment [39].

The South African mining Act, 1996 (Act 29 of 1996) was endorsed to improve health and safety performance and great emphasis was placed on adherence to mine standards [46]. Furthermore, different types of legislation were passed to assist in the transformation6and "improvement of the safety standards in the mining sector, among others, the Skills Development Act of 1998 (SDA), Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act, 2013 (BBEEA), (Minerals Petroleum Resources and Development Amendment Bill 2013 (MPRDAB), Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, 1997 (COIDA), Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Amendment Act, 2002 (ODMWAA), Labour Relations Act, 1996 (LRA), Basic Conditions of Employment Act of 1997, Mining Charter 2010, and the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996".

The Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) Mining Engineering Handbook, expresses that all mining tasks are needed to adhere to local, provincial, and governmental guidelines that indicate mine health and safety guidelines and norms, environmental protection, and work relations. The nature, degree, and toughness of these guidelines, at last, administer the mining activity [45].

Lack of emphasis on the promotion of health of mine-workers made the Commission to endorsed to improve the state of the safety standards in the mining sector, among others, the enactment of a new Mine Health and Safety Act 29 of 1996 (hereinafter referred to as MHSA), which started operating from January 1997.140 The Act (MHSA) has established a council known as Mine Health and Safety Council (MHSC), that contemplates the status of health and safety in the mining sector, recommends policy and legislation, commissions' research, and offers suitable advice to the Minister of Mineral Resources.

The Department of mineral resources and energy South Africa is responsible to promote and regulate the minerals and mining sector in SA. Furthermore, the Department also has the responsibility to ensure that all the mining companies in SA follow and comply with the health and safety legislation. They also have an obligatory role to take action when the mining companies do not implement and comply with the regulations. Laws and standards. The mineral resource department can close/terminate the mining activities or take the mining companies to the Court of Justice if they fail to comply. The following regulations guide all the mines in SA on health and safety.
