Address burning mining issues, experts challenge Mantashe

Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe has been challenged to address burning issues pertaining to mining in South Africa, including regulatory certainty, processing of mining rights and the future of mining in the country.

The challenge came from a team of experts and partners at leading South African law firm Webber Wentzel, who wrote a joint article telling the minister that the world would be listening to what he would be saying at the Mining Indaba kicking off in Cape Town on Monday.

Mantashe will deliver a keynote address at the Indaba, his second since his appointment to the portfolio in May last year by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The experts – Jonathan Veeran, Lizle Louw, Kate Collier and Garyn Rapson – highlighted some of the most important aspects that they believe Mantashe should discuss at the conference.

They said the industry expected Mantashe to announce measures to allow mining companies to generate their own power and detail what steps were being taken to address SA’s ongoing energy crisis.

“Energy is particularly critical as beneficiation is a cornerstone of mining policy, but it is not viable in an environment of high labour and electricity costs,” they said.

The experts also welcomed the significant drop in the annual rate of mining fatalities from 81 in 2018 to 51 in 2019, describing it as welcome news.

“But we would welcome continued commitment from the regulator to assisting and partnering with employers to achieve the goal of zero harm.

“The minister should also note that the number of injuries still remains high and that more work, deeper thinking, real collaboration between employers, employees, unions and the regulator and possibly changes of approaches may be required if the industry is to experience real changes in this space,” the experts said in a joint statement released yesterday.

They said while there have been calls for changes to the Mine Health and Safety Act to stiffen penalties for non-compliance and calls for arrests of responsible persons, they did not believe amendments were necessary because there were already penalties in the Act.

“But the lack of judicial action following workplace accidents and breaches of the Act points to a shortage of resources in the National Prosecuting Authority and the department of mineral resources and energy,” they said.

In a separate telephonic interview, Veeran, who is head of mining at Webber Wentzel, told Saturday Citizen that the Mining Indaba took place against the backdrop of poor economic growth, a negative credit rating environment and massive load-shedding by Eskom.

He said unlike last year when Ramaphosa addressed the indaba, investors would be concerned this time around.

“The investors will be concerned about very little improvement in our economic performance, load shedding and the fact that there is reluctance to arrest those implicated in state capture,” he said.

“The minister needs to address these issues at the indaba. It would be disingenuous of him not to address them,” Veeran said.

Mantashe must also address the issue of sustainabity, added Veeran, suggesting government focus on agriculture activities that would sustain the people when the mines were no longer operational.

He said while the Mining Charter was an important document, there was no resolution on the question of regulation certainty in the mining sector.

“We have a massive mineral environment but we need to ensure that we have policy certainty and leadership in this country.

“These are among the issues that the Indaba must look at,” Veeran said.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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