Mpumalanga Business 2021-22
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INTERVIEW<br />
Please describe any staff development<br />
programmes.<br />
Our biggest competitive advantage is our human<br />
capital. We intend to create at least 10 A-rated<br />
geoscientists on the global scale in the next five to<br />
10 years because once you have created a capable<br />
institution then all these other things become very<br />
easy. Anything and everything is possible when<br />
you have competent, agile, committed world-class<br />
rated scientists.<br />
Do you have a bursary programme?<br />
We do. We have just concluded collaborations with<br />
many of our universities that have geosciences units.<br />
We want to expand that. We have collaborations<br />
with the United States geological survey and we are<br />
looking at the BRGM of the French and the Swedish<br />
and at some of the institutions in the East as well as<br />
on the African continent. These things create room<br />
beyond the bursary programmes for those who<br />
are upcoming and for those who are already in the<br />
system to have much greater exposure.<br />
One of the things that looks impossible in the<br />
world right now is to predict earthquakes. We have<br />
been collecting a lot of data and there are huge<br />
amounts of data from countries that are prone<br />
to earthquakes. We are marrying data that we<br />
have collected with multi-disciplinary geoscience<br />
functions and subjecting it to big-data processing.<br />
The ultimate goal is to try to develop the capability<br />
to predict earthquakes, not only for us in South Africa<br />
but for greater applications in humanity. Imagine<br />
if we crack that as the geoscientific community<br />
working together?<br />
It is my deep conviction that our world-class rated<br />
geoscientists will arise from those kinds of platforms.<br />
What are your targets in terms of staff<br />
development?<br />
Currently, 37% of our scientific staff has Master’s<br />
degrees and doctorates. We have a very ambitious<br />
target of 60%. If you have quality staff you will have a<br />
quality institution.<br />
Do you have mining-specific research projects?<br />
We have in the past year been asked to refocus on<br />
research related to derelict and ownerless mines. In<br />
relation to asbestos and its product, our scientists<br />
have installed equipment that detects and quantifies<br />
articulate substance in the air. In some areas we have<br />
been able to correlate the abundance of asbestos<br />
particulate matter in the air with a particular type of<br />
sickness within that community. We continue to track<br />
the closure procedures of mines.<br />
There has been a substantial decline in the<br />
amount of fibre in the air and we have seen how<br />
that has reduced a particular type of sickness in that<br />
community and enhanced general health. Those are<br />
some of the results that get us very, very excited: we<br />
scientists are just too modest! ■<br />
CGS geologists undertaking integrated mapping, Makhonjwa Mountains.