Company announcements

Harmony proactively addresses illegal mining

March 12, 2009

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Johannesburg. Wednesday, 11 March 2009. Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited (Harmony) is proactively addressing illegal mining activities, together with the South African Police Services (SAPS), Department of Justice and private security units. One of the initiatives, termed ‘Operation Zama’, was recently executed over a 10-day period to identify and remove criminal miners from eight of the company’s Free State mines.

This operation was a success and the first of its kind. Among the 114 people arrested by the SAPS during this operation, 19 were mine employees and five were the employees of Harmony contractors. More than R1.6 million worth of goods were confiscated, which included explosives, cash, gold bearing material, mine property and foodstuff. Harmony has since taken disciplinary action against its employees, by suspending and laying criminal charges against them.

Criminal miners not only pose a clear health and safety hazard to themselves and to Harmony’s own employees as a result of their unsafe actions, but they also cost the company through disruption to operations, theft of equipment and material, and the potential loss in production

The company has put strengthened plans and procedures in place to mitigate the impact of the problem, and legislation supports action taken against criminal miners. Furthermore, Harmony’s storage and use of explosives are audited regularly by the police and have been found to be efficient.

Harmony’s Chief Executive, Graham Briggs says, “As part of Harmony’s ongoing initiatives to combat this problem we have tightened security at the shaft heads, we conduct frequent spot inspections underground and we have gone to the extent of reducing the amount of food taken underground.”

“We would like to thank all parties involved for their support and assistance in our ongoing efforts to remove criminal miners from Harmony’s mines.”

For more details contact:

Tom Smith
Chief Operating Officer: South Region
+27 (0)84 499 6051

Graham Briggs
Chief Executive Officer
+27(0)83 265 0274

Marian van der Walt
Executive: Corporate and Investor Relations
+27 (0)82 888 1242