Occupational safety and health

• Key issues 2006/2007
• Living our values
• Our scorecard
• Review 2006
• Case studies
• Objectives 2007

Living our values

One of our four core values at AngloGold Ashanti relates to the safety and health of employees, namely:

‘Every manager and employee takes responsibility for health and safety; and together strive to create workplaces that are free from occupational injury and illness’.

AngloGold Ashanti’s safety and health management and practices are guided by the group’s business principle, ‘AngloGold Ashanti as an employer – safety and health’.

AngloGold Ashanti as an employer – safety and health

1. The company is committed to complying with all relevant occupational health and safety laws, regulations and standards. In the absence of such standards, leading practice will be adopted.
2. We are committed to providing a working environment that is conducive to safety and health.
3. The management of occupational safety and health is a prime responsibility of line management, from the executive level to the first-line supervisory level.
4. We strive for employee involvement and consultation with employees or their representatives to gain commitment in the implementation of these principles.
5. The company is committed to providing all necessary resources to enable compliance with these principles.
6. The company will not tolerate or condone deliberate breaches in standards and procedures.
7. We will implement safety and health management systems based on internationally recognised standards and we will assess the effectiveness of these systems through periodic audits.
8. We will conduct the necessary risk assessments to anticipate, minimise and control occupational hazards.
9. We will promote initiatives to continuously reduce the safety and health risks associated with our business activities.
10. We will set safety and health objectives based on comprehensive strategic plans and will measure performance against these plans.
11. We will monitor the effects of the company’s operational activities on the safety and health of our employees and others, and we will conduct regular performance reviews.
12. We will provide all necessary personal protective equipment.
13. We will establish and maintain a system of medical surveillance for our employees.
14. We will communicate openly on safety and health issues with employees and other stakeholders.
15. We will ensure that employees at all levels receive appropriate training and are competent to carry out their duties and responsibilities. We will require our contractors to comply with these principles and we will seek to influence joint venture partners to apply them as well.

Wellness in the workplace

A comprehensive programme – Wellness in the Workplace – which adopts an integrated approach to managing the health and well-being of employees has been put in place at the company’s underground mining operations in South Africa and Obuasi in Ghana. (See diagram) The fundamental concept underlying this approach is the company’s aim to engage healthy and productive people at the beginning of their careers and to ensure that these employees remain so until they leave the employ of the company, sometimes many decades later. This concept recognises the intrinsic interdependence of safety, occupational health, the environment and productivity, and requires an integrated and coordinated approach by the safety, occupational health, environment, medical and human resources disciplines. The programme has three phases: the pre-employment/engagement phase; the employment phase during which employees are exposed to the social and occupational environment; and the termination/post-employment phase.