A hard-won culture of safety has earned Murray & Roberts Cementation the accolade of seven-million fatality-free shifts from the Association of Mine Managers of South Africa (AMMSA).

The award was presented to Murray & Roberts Cementation project executive Kethu Mokgatlha by AMMSA president Mosala Letebele at a ceremony in Johannesburg, in June, to recognise the company’s outstanding achievement.

The seven-million shifts were undertaken over a period of almost nine years and spanned five different shaft-sinking projects in South Africa. The work undertaken also covers specialist interventions such as ore pass rehabilitation, grout sealing and underground support systems.

Murray & Roberts Cementation risk executive Trevor Schultz says the award is particularly heartening in a working environment that carries a range of technical risk factors.

He points to the culture of safety, developed over decades of intense focus and commitment, as the foundation for this safety milestone.

“It also requires that everyone in the business – from those at the rockface right through to the executive management – is focused on the same goal,” he says.

“It starts with carefully structured training at entry level and a continuous emphasis on our corporate values, which prioritise safe working practices and a constructive mindset that must be developed over time.”

He highlights that the company’s safety systems and protocols have always been in place to support and complement this culture.

Its successful Major Accident Prevention Programme, for instance, has evolved into a Critical Controls Management process to continue raising the safety bar. These frameworks align with the requirements of customers in the mining sector, serving to enhance and reinforce both parties’ safety efforts.

“Working safely is also a highly collaborative effort that extends beyond our company and our customers,” he points out.

“It includes the constructive involvement of local communities and suppliers – for example, we employ most of our general workers from the areas around our project sites which makes it vital that even our novice training is highly impactful and safety focused.”

All training is carried out to the highest standards at the Murray & Roberts Training Academy near Carletonville.

Schultz, meanwhile, also paid tribute to the late Tony Pretorius, the company’s former education and training executive, for formulating innovative training modules to foster its safety culture.