What the mining charter could have been

Former mining minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi also intended to implement increased black ownership targets in the mining sector in a revised mining charter, but this would have applied only to new mining operations, he told the Mail & Guardian this week.

Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane this week increased the black ownership target of South African mines from 26% to 30% and gave the companies a 12-month deadline to do so.

Ramatlhodi, who was seen to be critical of President Jacob

Zuma and the Gupta family, was sacked as public services and administration minister in Zuma’s midnight Cabinet reshuffle in March. He previously served as minerals resources minister but was moved from the portfolio in 2015.

The former minister spoke out publicly about how he was once invited to the Guptas’ home in Saxonwold, Johannesburg, but, unlike many of his Cabinet colleagues, he rejected the invitation.

After being fired in March this year, he also revealed that former Eskom board chairperson Ben Ngubane had put pressure on him to suspend the mining licence of Glencore, whose Optimum Coal mine was later bought by the Gupta family.

The former minister told the M&G this week that, the day before he was fired, he held a meeting with major mining companies, including Anglo American and Goldfields, about what he described as “new frontiers” where the charter could be implemented and tested.

“Our idea was that we were going to look at opening new frontiers. What is possible in the mining industry going forward in South Africa. And those frontiers have no [mining charter] targets, because there are new mining rights being issued in South Africa and that’s where the charter could be implemented,” he said.

He would not comment on Zwane’s revised charter, or give his views on his successor.

“We have not yet had a discussion about opening new mines on the basis of new principles,” Ramatlhodi said.

Another vision that never took off because of the reshuffle, Ramatlhodi said, was his plans for the country’s abandoned mines, which are being mined illegally by zama-zamas.

“The other frontier was going to look at was the zama-zama

[illegal mining] issue. We were asking: How do we regularise it and attempt to legalise it? Those are disused mines [used by zama-zamas] and, if you remove overheads, the mine can reopen and create jobs,” Ramatlhodi said.

In the revised charter, Zwane increased the minimum local procurement percentage spend from 40% to 70%. He also scrapped the “once empowered, always empowered” principle, which is the subject of court action by the Chamber of Mines due to be heard in July. The principle exempts companies that previously met black employment equity targets, but now fall short of them because black investors had sold their shares to white businesses.