by LUKE ZUNGA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – RECENTLY the news carried the inexperienced Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni who, like a little reptile cropping out, was going to smoke illegal miners out of the abandoned mines.
The statement threat reflects a whacking lack of appreciation of the issues.
There are over 6,000 mines which are abandoned and closed by white owners. The abandoned mines dumped workers and left them destitute, but with a skill to work underground.
Does it mean the decision to close the mine means the Africans cannot access their mineral wealth? This is the question this Minister should have asked.
If the government had been doing it correctly the invasion of disused mines would have been handled differently.
This matter therefore is poor governance at its core.
The problem in the South African government is the linkage between the executive and the people. The executive is the President and the Minister. The linkage is through the Director General(DG).
The South Africa Development Foundation, which is a non-profit company (NPC) submitted proposals in 2019 to the Minister, on how to engage black people in mining.
The proposal was that the government establish a fund from royalties, mine closing fees and departmental budget, to establish a trust account. Then establish a nonprofit company to control the trust account to finance prospecting and explorations by black professionals entering mining for themselves, not as employees of mining companies.
The trust fund would also be available for entry level smaller companies for equipment, training and starting small scale mining operations at new mines, abandoned mines, and tailings, fully licensed by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).
The new mining operations would grow on its own and attract foreign investors in the process.
The Director-General and the Minister did not respond, despite reminders. The truth is that the Minister did not see the proposal as all communications must be cleared by the DG before reaching the Minister.
The DG decides what to put to the Minister and the manner the DG thinks it should be done. It means policy standards in the country are the mindset of the DG. The DG controls all and the Minister is a laptop of the DG in his/her normal course of work.
This is not fair because the DG was not elected.
The elected person is the minister who appears, as in all ministries, to abdicate or delegate power to the DG. At the end of the day the country is ruled by DGs, who do not respond, have no responsibility to the electorate and are largely ignorant.
The mindset of the DG, as within the manufacturing industry, is to target foreign investors. But foreign investors are not coming for disused mines and tailings. It is these proposals which would have eliminated illegal mining.
Mining licenses would have been issued to mine these closed mines. Some of the closed mines are known to carry valuable yields but may not be viable for big spending mining companies, or foreign investors, yet profitable operations for small scale mining.
In the new book “What Economists Are Missing, Keeping you poorer” chapter 12, please buy it online at https://books2read.com/u/b5KwoGexplains, how Africa mineral ore helps finance the foreign investor.
There is a disadvantage in foreign investors in that the funding accessed by the foreign company in its home country, through the security of a mining license and its store, are not all used in the country which issued the licence. In this regard the foreign investor is only gunning for fresh new ore bodies, not closed or disused mines.
The DG does not see that.
Government must streamline communications lines to be able to govern better. The Minister must, at regular intervals, take over front line communications, which is currently done by the DG and the Personal Assistant (PA). The DG and the PA will not be able to hide anything.
– CAJ News