SMOULDERING PROBLEMS
The mining sector needs urgent structural change to enable small-scale miners
‘NOW what state do (we) live in? – Denial”. Bill Watterson, the creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, could very well have been referring to South Africa and our approach to the structural Titanic we like to call the mining sector.
As zama-zamas (illegal) miners engage in running gun battles near the township of Daveyton, the portfolio committee on mining together with all the major stakeholders, calls for more policing to resolve the problem.
This perennial state of denial is what led to the deaths of 44 miners in Marikana three years ago, and before that the deaths of 86 informal miners at the Harmony Gold mine. It allows, what should rightly signal the need for urgent change, to be swept under the carpet until the next tragedy or massacre.
Instead of seeing these events as watersheds that should spur us on to greater equality and justice, we instead reinforce the status quo in which the structural deficiencies of the mining sector are overlooked as the source of the problem. Instead we are told that this growing problem is one of criminality, not poverty.
Mining, we are constantly reminded, is the backbone of the South African economy. It has turned a 19th century nascent agricultural economy into the world`s leading gold supplier during the 20th century and into a sinking Titanic in the 21st.
Underdevelopment
As one of the most exploitative, extractive and violent industries in the world, the structural make-up of the industry has hardly changed over the course of 150 years of mining in South Africa. It has simultaneously created enormous pockets of wealth for its shareholders while leaving its “owners” mired in poverty and underdevelopment.
The Department of Mineral Resources and the government, incorporated into the structural benefits of the status quo, have been unable to chart a path out of and beyond the strictures of the most powerful lobby and the most entrenched vested interests.
Instead from its early progressive vision of a transformed mining sector that would benefit all the people, the state has reverted to the colonial protection of big mining and has all but abandoned the hope of fighting for and implementing structural changes that would benefit society as a whole. As far back as 1998, the government released its White Paper on Minerals and Mining Policy, where it dedicated an entire section to policy statements meant to encourage and facilitate the development of the small-scale mining.
Yet, legislation setting out guidelines for regulating the mining industry, the Mineral and Resources Petroleum Act (MPRDA) of 2002 focuses mainly on large - scale mining (LSM), with a few exceptions. Section 27 describes a permitting process for allowing small-scale mining, yet this process is extremely onerous as it requires submitting technical applications and environmental management plans, which is certainly out of reach of artisanal miners.
While a Directorate of Small-Scale Mining exists to promote development of the sector and provide support to artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM), in practice, these miners are often criminalised by the legislation, without addressing how to bring informal miners into the formal sector. In November of 2009 the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources conducted public hearings to investigate the deaths of 86 informal miners at Harmony Gold mine.
The report highlighted extensive organised criminal activity, such as beatings of employees by informal miners and organised syndicates with kingpins.
Submissions also included negative societal impacts on surrounding communities as a result of mining houses failing to meet their social, safety and environmental obligations. The recommendations that followed these public hearings included legislative reform only dealing with the illegal miners and included ways to increase penalties against them.
Excluded
With more than 6 000 abandoned mines across South Africa and more than 1 000 active mines around which communities living in poverty are excluded from sharing in the bounty of their land, the challenge and lure of artisanal and small scale mining will only grow.
South Africa faces a huge challenge of structural unemployment. The mining industry has shed more than half a million jobs in the last 15 to 20 years and all indications are that this trend will continue. ASMs, if brought under the legal protection and regulation of the state, offers not only an end to the lawlessness of zamazama mining and the curtailment of the crime syndicates which benefit from it, but also offers the chance for creating jobs.
But first we have to overcome the colonial legacy, which prefers large scale mining that only benefits a small elite and reorientate our policy towards the inclusion of communities – small scale and artisanal mining that creates employment, empowerment, environmental sustainability and allows the state and community to benefit from the R6 billion that the zama-zamas mine every year.
To do this we need not reinvent the wheel. Small-scale mining provides about 1.1 million jobs in Ghana and produces about a fifth of the country’s gold.
In Tanzania, small scale and artisanal mining provides close to 1.5 million jobs and accounts for more than 10 percent of the countries gold production.
Despite the lack of progress in regulating this sector, many lessons have been learnt and success factors must include the following:
Legitimise the artisanal and smallscale mining sector: Create easy and uncomplicated methods to register ASMs, while ensuring that property rights are adjusted to ensure that in economic terms, there is an incentive to invest time and effort in a piece of land. Where there is unlimited access to a resource, there will be no concern of individuals to use it in a sustainable manner, and inefficient overuse and exploitation will follow. Establish a legitimate small-scale market for the purchase and sale of minerals.
Build capacity: This includes developing the government’s ability to deal with the sector, but more importantly it should include building capacity so the ASM miners can organise themselves more productively; participate in the community; and invite the community members to participate in building sustainable livelihood opportunities for the entire community. The organisation of the ASMs also simplifies negotiations, registration, training and monitoring.
Promote diversification: Education and support – both financial and practical, to develop alternative skills in downstream and upstream industries to create alternative employment opportunities. Develop community skills in rehabilitation of abandoned mines and in the development of campaigns such as the One Million Climate Jobs campaign.
Improve collaboration between LSMs and small-scale miners: Ensure that LSMs are required to share land and resources with communities in such a way that helps to develop skills, and that creates jobs and wealth for the community. LSMs must be required to work with ASMs to come to a formal agreement to cohabitate and share the resource.
The challenge before us requires an inclusive solution. Government’s response continues to be one dimensional. Its solutions are predicated only on the status quo and creating more “efficient” versions of the status quo.
The Phakisa project and the amendments to the MPRDA which is still stuck in Parliament, seeks only to speed up the extraction of minerals and the exploitation of our resources without considering the lasting inequality of the structural legacy of mining.
The only winners will be the usual suspects leaving the underlying problems to smoulder, which at the slightest spark could ignite into the next tragedy.
Our sinking Titanic needs a captain who can see the icebergs and take action to avoid them.
The recommendations that followed these public hearings included legislative reform only dealing with the illegal miners.