MVSZ calls for ventilation practitioners to be included mine decision-making

Judith Phiri, Zimpapers Business Hub

Mine Ventilation Society of Zimbabwe (MVSZ) has called on mining companies and miners to include ventilation practitioners in mine decision-making and their operations to ensure worker safety and health.

In Zimbabwe ventilation practitioners are usually consulted after a mine’s designs are finalised, unlike in other countries where these experts routinely sit on decision-making boards.

In an interview on the sidelines of the recent MVSZ Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Symposium in Bulawayo, MVSZ president Dr Tonderai Chikande said ventilation was the backbone of any mining operation.

“The whole essence to do with ventilation is to manage some occupational hygiene stressors. It assists in removing heat from the mines, thereby managing the stress issues that are around dust removal and any other pollutants,” he said.

“So if you can optimise your highly efficient ventilation system, you can actually improve productivity and have safer mining operations. We have to also optimise the ventilation systems so that we can reduce issues around carbon footprint, which talks to environmental, social, and governance (ESG), as well as issues around other pollutants like diesel and particulate matter.”

He said proper ventilation systems were critical as mining was evolving and there were a number of challenges that are being encountered.

Dr Chikande said the mines were getting deeper and also increasing the degree of mechanisation, while an increase was being witnessed in terms of fire load index and geological complexities which all affect ventilation.

On legislative reforms, he added: “We actually have regulations which govern issues around ventilation and some of those regulations are bit outdated. There is need for us to modernise the regulation for regulatory framework so that it talks to the emerging risks such as diesel particulate matter, which was not there when the initial regulations were promulgated.”

Dr Chikande said university students were the future of the mining profession, and they were engaged for the Symposium to do technical presentations and bring out issues around innovation and research key to optimising ventilation systems.

South African AMS Haden Mining Services Divisional manager, Mr Garth Nelson said good ventilation systems were critical for all mining operations for good health conditions.

“We must embrace technology and make sure we all use real time monitoring instrumentation. This will make sure that the conditions underground are favourable for everyone and also for production.

 

“So if the ventilation systems are very good, they are looked after and cared for we can have more machinery working, more tonnes produced and workers safe as well. It’s very important to make sure that we put in place the real time monitoring as required to enhance our mining production,” he said.

He said he was impressed by the adoption of technologies by mining companies in Zimbabwe and how the people’s attitudes have changed towards health and safety.

Mr Nelson said by adopting real time monitoring, mining companies and miners can monitor if the conditions in their mining operations improve or get worse for a better mining future.