Ready for real life

Contract mining firm Redpath South Africa (SA) has established a training centre at its head office in Johannesburg, which is accredited by the Mining Qualifications Authority (MQA), offering skills programmes, study assistance and training in safe working procedures for its employees.

Johan Jansen van Vuuren, general manager – SHEQT for Redpath Mining SA, says the facility will be invaluable in simulating “real-life” situations as employees can practice what they’ve learned in a safe, yet practical and realistic, environment.

“As an MQA-certified facility, the centre provides mandatory in-house induction training and training in safe working procedures to all employees. There are also MQA-accredited skills programmes for selected occupations, such as blasting assistant training, Competent A training – involving workplace-safe declaration, and Competent B training – involving semi-skilled underground workers,” he says.

Redpath SA will also offer learnerships to learner miners and artisans. In addition, the firm will offer study assistance for various job-specific correspondence studies and
job-specific training, such as computer literacy courses and first aid. Jansen van Vuuren states that Redpath SA is also committed to providing internal study assistance.

Along with “real-life” skills development, Redpath SA is also making strides in training staff on safety in the workplace. This commitment is evident in its record of 230 days without any lost time, and 470 fatality-free days as of September 12, 2013.

The company is also planning to establish a purpose-built training centre at its Zambian project.