PRESS RELEASE - 04 October 2004

SASOL MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE: COMMUNITY MARCH TO DEMAND INCIDENT REPORT!

Residents of eMbalenhle in Mpumalanga, led by the environmental justice organisation, Voice of the Voiceless (VoV), will march on Monday morning (10:00am), 4 October 2004 from the eMbalenhle stadium to Sasol’s Sports and recreation centre to hand over a Memorandum requesting access to information from Sasol management with regard to the recent spate of incidents at the Sasol Secunda plant.

The Voice of the Voiceless have on numerous occasions requested Sasol to provide information to the community about the incident and what plans they will be putting in place to prevent similar disasters from occurring. Sasol has not responded. Representatives from community organizations in eMbalenhle will participate in the March.

On 1 September 2004, a gas explosion at the Sasol plant in Secunda left ten workers dead and hundreds injured. Repeated calls by groundWork and community organisations from eMbalenhle (Secunda) and Zamdela (Sasolburg) for the incident report have been ignored.

groundWork, community organisations [1] and residents are repeating their call for a presidential Commission of Enquiry into the:

• Worker and community safety of the petro-chemical industry in South Africa;
• Labour practices of the petro-chemical industry; and
• Liability of senior refinery managers in the deaths and injury of people at the petro-chemical plants.

Government needs to step in and hold the petro-chemical industry managers accountable to ensure that no more workers lose their lives because of profit.

Contact person: Patrick Duma 0726692633 – Voice of the Voiceless

[1]

• Sasolburg Air Quality Monitoring Committee
• South Durban Community Environmental Alliance
• Boipatong Environmental Working Group
• Table View Residents Association
• African Genesis Heritage Environmental Club
• Highveld East Community Environmental Monitoring Association
• Vuka Environment Dot Com