Zwane cops flak for dereliction of duty

The Department of Mineral Resources, headed by controversial minister Mosebenzi Zwane, has been rapped over the knuckles by Parliament’s mining committee for what it called its failure to do all it can to prop up the struggling industry.

The committee’s budgetary review and recommendation report, which is prepared after interrogating the 2015-16 annual reports of the department and the entities over which it has responsibility, was tabled in Parliament on Thursday.

The review notes despite the mining industry being in a great crisis due to the unfavourable economic climate, the department has not done everything in its powers to assist.

“The question is whether the Department of Mineral Resources is doing all that possibly could be done in its role as the custodian of the nation’s mineral wealth. Many initiatives to tackle problems in the sector seem to be perpetually delayed,” the report notes.

“The need for important, additional amendments to the mining law were acknowledged in 2010 – even before the first [2008] amendment to the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) had been promulgated — yet no mining legislation has been successfully passed since 2008.

“The MPRDA remains with Parliament and there is still no time frame for the processing of the bill, despite a call by the president in [the] state of the nation address 2016 for Parliament to conclude the bill ‘expeditiously’.”

The committee has adopted the amendment bill, ignoring President Jacob Zuma’s reservations about its substance that caused him to send it back to Parliament for reconsideration.

The process to review the mining charter, which ended its reporting phase in 2014, has not been completed. This has major implications for investor confidence Mosebenzi Zwane and for community concerns, the committee says in the report. It has mandated the department “as a matter of urgency” to spell out clearly the interim targets that mining companies are expected to meet in 2015-16.

The report also notes no clarity has been provided on the status of the revised draft bill to amend the mine health and safety legislation, which was supposedly under consultation within the National Economic Development and Labour Council in 2014-15.

The report also notes the problems with the law regulating the State Diamond Trader and the South African Diamond and Precious Metals Regulator have been acknowledged for many years at the highest levels, but no laws have been amended.

It calls on the department to develop an alternative business plan for the State Diamond Trader, set up to promote local beneficiation. While it is allowed to purchase up to 10% of diamond production it purchased only1% of rough diamond production, by volume and 3% by value last year.

Very little was sold to the historically disadvantaged.

Mining Phakisa was promoted in 2015 as a deal-making intervention to save the mining sector. The report notes much time and effort was devoted to planning and stakeholder consultations, but almost a year later, it is yet to be launched.