We can finally ensure 500,000 miners are paid out for silicosis and TB — here’s the problem

South Africa can now move compensation across borders, but the legal track needed to deliver justice to former miners remains unfinished. That gap threatens payments to hundreds of thousands of men whose working lives helped build the country’s gold economy.

The 2019 class-action settlement with six gold mining companies created the Tshiamiso Trust and set aside roughly R5 billion for silicosis and tuberculosis claims. By February 2026, the Trust had paid about R2.5 billion across six countries. That represents roughly half the money and half the period available to spend it. The number of people reached, however, remains far smaller. Advocates estimate about 500,000 potential claimants, while only around 23,000 have been paid.

The obstacles are especially stark in Lesotho, where 5,464 men diagnosed since 1965 cannot be traced. A separate backlog also remains under the century-old Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act. The Compensation Commissioner recorded more than 107,000 unpaid claims as early as 2017. Any money the Trust does not pay before its mandate ends will lapse rather than carry forward.

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The migrant labour system that built South Africa’s gold economy was a machine for moving value in one direction.

The article describes a functioning “return rail” for compensation as requiring four elements: a legal right to claim, cooperating institutions, compatible records and technology for exchanging data and making payments. Identity systems, data exchange and payment mechanisms are being developed. The missing segment is the law.

The Trust’s chairperson has acknowledged that strict ODMWA criteria made more than 70% of 83,810 certified claims ineligible. Applicants underwent medical examinations and received certification, yet failed a legal test because employers or state institutions had not preserved the records needed decades later. Service histories, medical evidence and post-mortem documentation were often interrupted by borders, time and missing paperwork. The result is a system in which the same claimant can receive different answers depending on the institution handling the case.

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The system had every rail it needed to carry labour in. It never laid the one to carry justice back out.