Addressing the latest of MOZAL's six monthly public meetings, Mesquita said "In terms of safety, MOZAL is comparable with any company in the Dupont group, generally regarded as a world benchmark in safety".
But although the accident frequency rate at MOZAL has declined steeply over the last three years, the occasional, unexpected tragedy can still strike. Mesquita revealed that recently a driver for one of the companies contracted by MOZAL drowned when his vehicle rolled off the aluminium terminal at the port of Matola and into the sea.
For Mesquita, no workplace accident was ever acceptable.
"That's why we have a zero damage policy. My dream is that one day we can come to one of these meetings with you and announce that we had no accidents at all in the previous year".
MOZAL's environmental record also remains good. The main pollutant associated with aluminium production is fluoride. The World Bank guidelines are that no more than one kilogram of fluoride for every tonne of aluminium produced should be released into the atmosphere.
MOZAL is well within this limit. According to the company's environmental specialist, Ana Lobo, the average emissions in March were 0.49 kilos per tonne, rising to 0.56 kilos per tonne in April.
She attributed this slight rise to the replacement in April of filters in the MOZAL gas treatment plant, which had reached the end of their five year useful life.
Rain can also wash fluoride from MOZAL into the nearby Matola river. To control this, all the storm water is channelled into a retention dam, and then diluted.
Lobo said the water is only released into the river when the fluoride concentration has fallen to acceptable levels. The World Bank's limit for fluoride in water is 20 parts per million (ppm), but MOZAL has set itself a more stringent limit of 17 ppm. The actual figure for fluoride content of water released into the river in March and April was 13.6 ppm.
Mesquita added that MOZAL hopes to find ways of recycling all water. "It's a strategic priority to reduce the use of water", he stressed, given that fresh water is a scarce commodity in southern Africa.
That the water released from MOZAL cannot be harming the environment is clear from the wildlife that has taken over the retention dam. There are flourishing communities of fish, amphibians and waterfowl here, which would not be the case if the water were highly polluted.
Asked about MOZAL staff leaving the smelter to work elsewhere, Mesquita said that other companies did indeed poach some of MOZAL's skilled workers.
But to persuade workers to leave, these companies have to offer a great deal. Mesquita pointed out that the minimum wage in MOZAL is 14 times higher than the national statutory minimum wage. On top of this there are favourable pensions schemes and health plans.
"But if somebody wants to pay a MOZAL worker two or three times as much, then I'm very happy", he added.
Mesquita said that less than two per cent of the MOZAL workforce leaves per year, "and some of those who leave come back to MOZAL later, which is an excellent message for our workers".
The majority shareholder in MOZAL is the multinational metals corporation, BHP-Billiton. Mesquita compared the relative stability of the MOZAL workforce, with the situation of some of BHP-Billiton's enterprises in Australia, which have a staff turnover of 20 per cent a year.
Furthermore, MOZAL's Mozambican staff are now so highly qualified that BHP-Billiton has sent some of them to work in responsible positions abroad in countries such as South Africa, Brazil, Chile and Australia.
SOURCE: AIM
