Health & Safety

Kamoa Copper places the highest priority on the health, safety and wellbeing of its employees and therefore has applicable policies, procedures, and protocols in place to ensure a happy, healthy workforce that is able to safely complete every job, every day.

Health

2020 was an unprecedented year in terms of health with COVID-19 stretching healthcare facilities and health workers to their limits.

Kamoa Copper adopted a number of COVID-19 prevention measures during 2020 which remain strictly enforced, with further prevention being the focus as new COVID‑19 strains continue to develop globally.

These prevention measures include rigorous testing, social distancing, wearing of face masks, frequent hand washing and contact‑tracing measures to protect the safety and health of our workforce and community members.

Despite the critical and urgent need to manage and prevent the spread of COVID-19 within the labour force and surrounding communities, the need to undertake normal occupational health and hygiene monitoring programmes was necessary and remained part of Kamoa Copper’s health protocol.

In 2020, Kamoa Copper conducted annual occupational medicals as well as a hygiene and infectious diseases awareness campaign benefitting 2,726 employees. A total of 13,851 consultations were undertaken by the occupational health clinic for various conditions, including chronic diseases. Additionally, 4,175 malaria tests were administered, with 1,443 yielding positive results and requiring treatment.

Safety

Kamoa Copper’s safety objective is simple – to continually strive to ensure zero harm to all employees and contractors working at Kamoa. This ensures that workers are not endangered and can return home unharmed each day.

The company conducts routine inspections to identify and remove, or minimise, potential hazards. Safety training and protective equipment is provided for employees in hazardous work areas; and basic safety-awareness briefings and information materials are provided for all employees. Employees are also encouraged to immediately report unsafe equipment, practices, or conditions onsite to ensure their safety and the safety of their fellow employees.

Kamoa Copper’s five-step health and safety management plan includes the following:

Commitment and policy
Planning
Implementation
Measurement and evaluation
Review and improvement

Kamoa Copper applies three safety principles when performing all day‑to‑day activities:

Believing that all injuries are preventable;
Implementing the correct preventive action to prevent the repeat of previous accidents and injuries; and
Having the correct programmes and practices in place to maintain working conditions conducive of a safe working environment.