Safety Training with RRC International is Worth its Weight in Gold
Randgold Resources Limited is one of the largest and most profitable gold mining businesses in the world. Randgold operates 5 gold mines in 3 African countries – Loulo, Gounkoto and Morila in Mali; Tongon in Côte d’Ivoire and Kibali in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In March 2016, Dr. Haladou Mahaman Manirou, Group Health and Safety Manager, contacted RRC to explore how RRC could help train their senior managers throughout their West African operation.
Dr. Haladou explained the drivers for the approach and the identified training need:
“In 2015, Randgold experienced its first rise in LTIFR [Lost Time Injurt Frequency Rate] in five years. Eager to halt and reverse the trend, we implemented a number of measures to improve our safety performance in 2016.
Safety starts at the top, therefore we decided to send 146 management staff including all heads of department and their deputies on the IOSH Managing Safely® training course, to ensure they had the knowledge and skills necessary to assess and manage the various health and safety challenges in their departments.”
RRC’s Steve Burke travelled to West and Central Africa many times over the following year delivering the IOSH Managing Safely® course to Randgold’s managers at their various mines.

IOSH training was just the start and it was clear that Randgold were in need of a new Incident Root Cause Analysis (IRCA) system. Their IRCA system was a generic package and although functional, did not give them the level of detail they needed; they wanted something geared around the types of incidents and accidents that could (and do) occur in and around a mining environment. RRC set to work developing a bespoke IRCA system for Randgold tailored to their operations, along with a two day training course specifically on how to use the system.
The success of the training provided by RRC thus far has provided the opportunity to extend further in developing a continuous development programme for the safety teams.
Beginning in October 2017, RRC delivered the NEBOSH International General Certificate (IGC) course in Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo for health and safety personnel from across the group, as well as the NEBOSH Award in Health & Safety at Work to staff in Mali and the NEBOSH Environmental Certificate in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Whilst English is the business language used in Randgold, in West Africa the most predominantly spoken language is French. In 2017 Randgold asked RRC how we could start cascading the health and safety training to supervisors and team leaders who have very little understanding of the English language.
RRC’s Tunisian office were called in to help; their trainers were experienced in delivering NEBOSH and short courses in French. Looking at Rangold's specific training need, RRC were able to quickly develop a bespoke ‘Safety at Work for Supervisors’ course in French, with tutors with the necessary language skills from RRC’s UK and Tunisian Offices.
Dr. Haladou comments below on the reasons for choosing RRC as their training provider, and also the objectives behind training for managers and supervisors in both English and French languages:
“Armed with this knowledge provided by the IOSH Managing Safely training we believe our managers are better equipped to embed a health and safety culture within their own teams and the wider organisation.
We believe the 58% increase in near miss reports in 2016 is an indication of improved awareness of safety risks. We now plan to extend the training by running a similar course for team supervisors in 2017.
Managers are in the heart of our operations and we believe that leadership is the fundamental driver of health, safety and production performances.”