The National Union of Mineworkers is hoping that an announcement on the nation-wide safety audit of SA mines will be made soon, it said on Friday.

"At this stage we are not certain when the announcement will be made.

"However, the president has indicated to us that he will be consulting with ministers when they are back from leave and we are hoping that an announcement will be made soon," said the NUM's general secretary Frans Baleni.

"We made several calls that the report should be released before the end of last year — this would have been appropriate as it would have enabled us to pick up critical issues from the report that need to be dealt with," Baleni said.

The safety audit was launched in late 2007 on the instructions of former president Thabo Mbeki soon after an accident which trapped 3200 workers at Harmony Gold's Elandsrand mine for almost two days in October 2007.

As far back as August 2008, Thabo Gazi, head of the mining safety and health unit at the department of minerals, said that the report had been completed.

In a statement on Friday, the NUM noted that fatalities in the mining industry in 2008 had dropped.

"The NUM, while awaiting the official statistics from the department of mineral and energy's mining inspectorate, from our records, we note the 23 percent drop in the number of fatalities recorded in the mining industry in 2008," the statement said.

While the NUM applauded the industry for the significant drop from 221 deaths in 2007 to 170 deaths in 2008, the union said that this was "still not a cause for celebration".

"We are determined to ensure that together with the industry we reach zero harm."

The NUM said it was concerned at the growing number of fatalities in the construction industry and urged construction companies not to "sacrifice" lives in a rush to complete 2010 projects.

"We are also concerned about the increase of injuries and fatalities in the coal sector," the NUM said.

Sapa

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