Mines face turbulence
SOUTH Africa has advertised it is “open for business” at the world’s largest annual mining conference, but industry players worry regulatory confusion could prevent the country from cashing in on the bull years that may lie ahead.
After Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane told the Mining Indaba in Cape Town that rising commodity prices marked the start of “a new spring”, chief executive of the Sibanye mining company Neal Froneman, said that “the investment appetite is very negative”.
Analysts and miners have decried a regulatory environment that they say has hit investment and forced industry and government to slug it out in court.
Sibanye is taking the government to court for about R26-million after one of its platinum mines was completely shut down following a fatal accident in September.
Last year, a court also said safety officers acted disproportionately when operations at an AngloGold Ashanti gold mine were suspended over violations in a single section of the mine.
“When you end up closing an entire mine when you’ve got a localised problem, the economic damage of that is significant,” Chamber of Mines chief executive Roger Baxter said.
But Zwane has insisted he will not compromise on safety standards and slammed mining companies for “threatening” his department with court action. There were 73 deaths in South African mines last year, down slightly from 77 in 2015.
“Courts should not be used as a tool to stifle debate and threaten government into taking positions,” Zwane told journalists at the conference. “We are here to govern. And we’ll do exactly that.”
Turning to the courts was the “last resort” for Sibanye, Froneman said.
It was not a knee-jerk reaction to one stoppage, but a series that had caused Sibanye “unnecessary damage and we’re not going to tolerate it anymore”.
Also looming is a rejig of the country’s mining charter with industry representatives at the Indaba repeatedly said they had not been adequately consulted in the drafting of the charter. — AFP