We can finally ensure 500,000 miners are paid out for silicosis and TB — here’s the problem
Daily Maverick | 03.09.2026 17:16
The migrant labour system that built South Africa’s gold economy was a machine for moving value in one direction. It pulled men into the Witwatersrand goldfields from the Eastern Cape, Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, took their working years underground and sent them home when their lungs failed. Wages left as remittances. Silica dust stayed in their chests. And the compensation they were owed stayed stranded on the wrong side of a border.
