Yesterday, 5 May 2026, representatives of Justice for Miners (JFM) and Action for Southern African (ACTSA) met with senior Anglo American South Africa (AASA) executives, to urgently discuss the Tshiamiso Trust’s decision to remove the rights of former miners and families of deceased miners to use medical certificates to lodge their claims for compensation from silicosis and/or TB.
The Medical Bureau of Occupational Diseases (MBOD) certificates were part of the Settlement Trust agreement of 2018 and the legally agreed mechanism to determine the degree of silicosis or TB affecting miners and thereby the level of compensation they were entitled to claim.
Now, in a surprise and unilateral development, the Tshiamiso Trust trustees have claimed these certificates are no longer valid, forcing sick miners to undergo new tests and any widows to endure untold trauma in trying to claim the compensation they won in the 2018 class action. The other five mining houses involved in the Tshiamiso Trust are: Harmony Gold, Anglogold Ashanti, Sibanye Stillwater, African Rainbow Minerals and Gold Fields.
This proposed change is in conflict with the trust deed and severely disadvantages former miners and their families in claiming their right to compensation. Such an action directly contradicts the words of Judge Vally when he determined the settlement agreement.
Justice for Miners, with ACTSA, expressed outrage at the actions of the Tshiamiso Trust and shared with AASA the realities of former miners and their families, living in severe poverty and difficulties due to these painful and terminal lung diseases. This attempt to deny their access to compensation (involving amounts as little as R12,000) by the Tshiamiso Trust is truly a shocking act of perpetuating injustice. For details on what this change means for claimants (miners), read more here.
At the Anglo American plc AGM in London on 29 April 2026, ACTSA questioned the corporation as to its responsibilities to the claimants of the TB and silicosis class action. During the meeting yesterday in Johannesburg, the JFM representatives highlighted with examples that the Tshiamiso Trust is not fit for purpose.
Ziyanda Manjati, JFM Eastern Cape Chapter chair, said: “The Trust has failed from the outset to deliver for the people it was set up to serve because its operations do not put the miners first”.
Janet Khan, Richard Spoor’s representation on the Trust Advisory Committee (TAC), said: “Tshiamiso means to make it right. The Trust has lost its way and it is failing to deliver the principle of justice to the dying miners who are entitled to compensation.”
Catherine Meyburgh, JFM, said: “The claimants are carrying the financial and physical burden of having to prove they are sick and dying. That was not the intention of the trust deed”.
Isabella Kentridge, legal researcher and advisor to ACTSA, said: “Anglo American South Africa, as a party to the class action settlement, reserved powers of monitoring the performance of the Trust and intervention where strictly necessary.”
Rachel Palma Randle, ACTSA Director, said: “Anglo American South Africa, with the other mining houses, retains powers and responsibility for monitoring the delivery of compensation, as set out in the trust deed. Anglo American must take an active and inquisitive approach to ensure that the spirit of the settlement agreement and the letter of the trust deed is delivered in a way which is fair to those who have been affected by silicosis and TB during their working lives in Anglo’s gold mines.”
ACTSA and Justice for Miners are taking action on behalf of an anticipated 500,000 former miners and their families, who are eligible to apply for compensation to the Tshiamiso Trust. Our organisations have worked together for four years on the problems arising from the poor processes and lack of transparency displayed by the Tshiamiso Trust.
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