The Department of Water and Sanitation says the mining company responsible for the 2022 mine dam collapse in Jagersfontein in the Free State will continue its operations despite a report which found them guilty of engineering and regulatory failures.

A technical investigation into the collapse of the Jagersfontein Fine Tailings Storage Facility found that the owner of the tailings dam, Jagersfontein Development (Pty) Ltd may have been aware of the structural instability along the southern wall of the dam at least three years before it collapsed.

According to the report, the company attempted to stabilise the slope, which was not effective, but continued to raise the dam wall and deposit more tailings into the dam.

This eventually led to the collapse of the dam on the 11th of September 2022.

Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister, David Mahlobo says, “When we visited the area, our attitude was to say let them close down and do the rehabilitation but that is one of the poorest communities so there was a plea by the community that they should proceed in terms of their leadership because of issues of unemployment. But then we had to put stringent conditions in place for them in terms of the water use licenses for every storage facility.”

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