JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – “We want to promote greater exploration and beneficiation of minerals,” President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday in his opening address to Mining Indaba Virtual 2021, where he praised South African mining for having shown tremendous resilience in the midst of Covid-19 pandemic.  

Ramaphosa singled out mining as being among the biggest contributors to economic growth in the third quarter of last year, when the 288% growth recorded was underpinned by platinum group metals, iron-ore, gold, manganese ore and diamonds in particular. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

The President of the Republic spoke laudably of mining's strong showing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2020 and put the ability of mining to weather the storm down to the positive working relations between government and the mining industry.

“This is something we should continue to build on. We should adapt to the realities of Covid-19, provide greater policy certainty, attract higher levels of investment, and protect livelihoods at the same time,” Ramaphosa said.

He described sustainable mining as the key to accelerated industrialisation, innovation, competition and creating employment.

“To ensure we increase the contribution of both mining and energy to meeting our developmental aspirations, we’ve taken significant steps to resolve policy and regulatory issues that investors have identified and raised with us as constraints to greater investment,” he revealed.

He urged mining to continue to strive for greater sustainability, competitiveness and transformation and for mining companies to continue to foster an inclusive approach to all aspects of mining, from ownership to participation in management and also procurement.

“There should be greater inclusion of women and women-owned businesses in all these areas,” he added.

Mining companies should, he said, strive to incorporate and actively implement environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards into all aspects of their business decisions and operations.

Social and labour plans were critical to ensuring that mining communities benefitted from mining activities in their areas so that no one was left behind.

“Industry must step up in their efforts to provide employment, business and training opportunities in the communities in which mining companies operate.

“All these elements are included in the Mining Charter, which was intensively canvassed among industry stakeholders. It is important that our commitment to transformation extends beyond compliance but is understood as creating shared value and prosperity for the people of South Africa.

“Alongside our transformation imperatives, we continue to drive policy reform in the sector. We want to promote greater exploration and beneficiation in minerals and upstream petroleum activities, especially developing our domestic and regional gas market.

“To grow existing mining activity, we are working with industry to formalise small-scale as well as artisanal mining, revitalise sterile mines and also discovering new minerals, especially those that are critical for the economy of the future.

“Reliable and affordable energy supply is the lifeblood of mining and the catalyst to economic growth and development.

“We have witnessed the adverse impact of high costs and unreliable energy supply on the mining sector in South Africa. That is why we are intensively engaged in the implementation of our Integrated Resource Plan.

“Through this plan, we are working to broaden our energy mix, enable energy generation for own use and reform and strengthen the capacity of the State power utility, Eskom.

“We call on all stakeholders in both government and the private sector to work with us in providing energy that increases production in all sectors of the economy, all the while creating job creation, growth and opportunities,” Ramaphosa said.

“I’m immensely encouraged by the positive sentiment from the mining industry, as expressed by Minerals Council South Africa, towards the vaccine roll-out,” he said. This follows Minerals Council South Africa president Mxolisi Mgojo estimating on Monday that the mining industry would spend R300-million to vaccinate three-million people.

Mgojo also decried South Africa in 2019 accounting for only 1% of global exploration expenditure and only 0.1% of greenfield exploration, which contrasted sharply with Canada and Australia, for example.

“We need exploration to grow our industry,” Mgojo said during a virtual State of the Mining Nation media briefing in which he described exploration as one of the low-hanging fruits that could change South Africa’s economic trajectory in the short term.

Between 2000 and 2018, Canada, he said, attracted, on average, $2-billion in exploration dollars a year and Australia $1.8-billion, compared with a mere $194-million attracted by South Africa during the same period.

Mgojo gave the reasons for this as:

• lack of transparency in the permitting system;
• delays in the issuing of permits;
• regulatory uncertainty; and
• lack of properly structured tax incentives for individuals/entities to invest into exploration in South Africa.

Fittingly, being flighted between sessions was an Anglo American advertisement showing an exploration drone, with a caption reading ‘explore more’ (See attached image.)

Minerals Council South Africa is also strongly promoting ESG, which is sweeping the investment world as an imperative.