ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has given Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe 60 days to honour his commitment that his department would retrieve the three miners’ bodies currently languishing in the bowels of the Lily Mine in Barberton, Mpumalanga.

Mashaba warned that if Mantashe fails to act, his party will proceed independently to recover the remains of Solomon Nyirenda, Pretty Nkambule and Yvonne Mnisi, who were trapped when their container collapsed during an implosion on 5 February 2016, leaving their families devastated.

Mashaba said, just like families of apartheid-era victims and other tragedies, they too deserve dignified burials and closure.

“Following Minister Gwede Mantashe’s recent promise, ActionSA has temporarily suspended our independent initiative to retrieve the container. We had already secured permission from the Business Rescue Practitioners to access the mine and engage mine rescue experts for proposals and quotations for the successful retrieval of Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi, and Solomon Nyirenda.

“We are prepared to give the Minister 60 days to honour his promise. Should he fail to do so, ActionSA will have no choice but to proceed independently. Such a failure would further expose the government’s continued insensitivity toward the plight of poor South Africans, particularly black citizens,” Mashaba said in a statement.

He added that Mantashe has, on numerous occasions, promised that his department would facilitate the retrieval of the bodies of Nyirenda, Nkambule, and Mnisi.

“These undertakings have consistently been communicated to the affected families, who continue to wait in anguish. ActionSA, which has stood by and supported these families throughout, calls on Minister Mantashe to urgently provide full details of his department’s plan to give effect to this long-overdue commitment.”

Mantashe’s office has yet to confirm that it made these commitments to Mashaba and ActionSA.