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Johannesburg - The government is neutral towards mining unions, and violence needs to be expunged from the sector, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said on Tuesday in an interview on Talk Radio 702.
During the interview Motlanthe also wished the ailing Mandela a speedy recovery.
"We have to keep him in our prayers and leave the rest to the almighty and hope that he will continue to bless us with his presence."
When asked whether the quality of the current African National Congress leadership matched the class of former president Nelson Mandela, Motlanthe said: "The past we inherit and the future we create. That is how I view it."
The current ANC generation was "giving it its best shot and it has to be judged for what it is today. You can't judge today's ANC on the basis of its exulted history," he said.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) had complained that government was taking sides in its intervention, favouring the rival National Union of Mineworkers.
"That's the first complaint that Amcu communicated to me... [it] was against my colleagues in Cabinet that they used public platforms to speak ill of Amcu," he said.
The matter had been raised with Cabinet ministers, and also with President Jacob Zuma, and had been addressed.
"As government we are neutral, you can ask Amcu. We treat every one of them [unions] the same way."
Motlanthe said the government needs to eliminate is the acts of violence,
intimidation, and lawlessness in the mining sector.
Zuma had tasked Motlanthe with leading a team of Cabinet ministers to bring stability to the mining sector. He said all parties in the sector had to help resolve the problems it faced.
Motlanthe proposed that mining houses provide transport for migrant workers to visit their families regularly. He suggested eight weeks of work, followed by a two-week break to be with their families. This would enable the workers to spend money on their families and in their local economies.
"Labour forwarding areas also have depressed local economies because they [mineworkers] spend their money elsewhere," he said.
