AngloGold Ashanti records improvement in safety in 2008

Obuasi, June 9, GNA - Anglo Gold Ashanti Group recorded a significant improvement in safety in 2008, registering 14 fatal accidents as against 34 in 2007 with 11 of the 18 operating mining units experiencing no fatal incident.

The Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) also witnessed an improvement by 11 percent to 7.32 injuries per million hours worked. In 2004, the company had 31 fatal accidents as against 25 in 2005, 37 in 2006 and 34 in 2007.

According to the company's "report to society, 2008" released to the press at Obuasi, the safety performance of 14 accidents still fell short of the company's objective of eliminating all fatal incidents at workplace.

"While this performance falls short of Anglo Gold Ashanti's objective of eliminating all fatal incidents at work, these statistics represent a significant improvement on the previous year's and the best ever performance of the group", it said. It said 11 of the fatal accidents occurred at South African operations, 2 at Obuasi and one at Sierra Grande mine in Brazil. The report said the company was committed to good safety performance as ''good safety performance and efficient production go hand in hand.

"The company is working very closely with its counterparts in the unions and the safety inspectorate to ensure both compliance with standards and improvement in performance", the report said. It said the company had targeted zero fatal accidents for this year whilst strengthening occupational safety and health systems across all operations and also will continue to improve dust control to achieve 2013 milestones in South Africa and eliminate silicosis. 09 June 09