SOUTH AFRICA’S Cosatu union federation slammed mine bosses and the industry’s minister yesterday after they failed to meet to discuss three workers buried underground a year ago.

Cosatu’s Mpumalanga provincial committee members visited the now-closed Lily mine in Barberton to demand answers about the recovery of the three miners’ bodies trapped more than half a mile underground when a sinkhole opened up.

They intended to press Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane to keep his promise of compensation to the workers’ families.

But neither mining firm Vantage management nor Mr Zwane arrived, instead attending the industry’s national mining indaba (gathering).

Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla said: “The minister seems to prefer to socialise with the privileged elite at the mining indaba and deliver vacuous and disjointed statements instead of telling workers what happened to the money that he promised them.”