Solidarity media statement
Local stakeholders are hampering the progress of the local mining industry through poor leadership and decision-making. This is according to Gideon du Plessis, General Secretary of Solidarity, who spoke at the annual Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Monday.
Du Plessis was a member of a panel that included Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies and Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Joseph Zwane, who addressed roughly 200 investors on the first day of the weeklong indaba. The theme of this year’s indaba is “Investing in African Mining”.
During his speech, Du Plessis said that South African stakeholders are the biggest enemy of the mining sector when it comes to their handling of controllable factors influencing the prosperity of the industry. “Stakeholders in the mining industry have the tendency to undo all the good work and initiatives through poor leadership and decision-making. This is turning the South African mining industry into a sunset industry despite the fact that we possess some of the world’s largest mineral reserves in our country,” Du Plessis said.
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Du Plessis went on to discuss several instances where local stakeholders hampered the success of constructive initiatives in the mining industry. These include, amongst others:
- Eskom’s recent announcement that load shedding was a thing of the past was initially met with elation. However, Eskom last year called for a massive tariff hike that could amount to the loss of 40 000 jobs in the mining industry. Furthermore, it began to emerge that over the past few months Eskom had entered into questionable coal supply deals with ineligible coal providers.
- Three prominent mining unions reached a wage agreement during the 2015 gold and coal negotiations which took the sustainability of the mining sector into consideration. The agreement involved an increase equal to or just above the rate of inflation. However, another trade union, with no interest in the sustainability of the mining sector, opted to reject the wage offer. The union is now holding the industry to ransom during all other wage negotiations.
- In 2015 the Department of Mineral Resources initiated a process whereby stakeholders were urged to agree to a ten point plan to save jobs, in a bid to curb retrenchments. However, since the start of 2016, unions are flooded with retrenchment notices from several different mining companies.
- With the creation of the Mining Consultative Forum, government created a favourable opportunity for social dialogue among mining stakeholders. Meanwhile, the government delegation tried their best to appease international investors at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. However, investors were still left with a considerable degree of doubt and concern given the recent introduction of harmful mining regulations and laws that impede property rights in South Africa.
- Global mining houses advocate their commitment to South Africa and deny that they are disinvesting from the country. However, it seems as though international investors are increasingly using the tough economic climate as excuse to drastically reduce their business interests in South Africa. In some instances, investors have admitted that they find it difficult and frustrating to run a mine in South Africa and that they prefer to rather invest outside the borders of the country.
In conclusion, Du Plessis urged all stakeholders to reconfirm their commitment to the future of the South African mining industry and to truly embrace the wealth of opportunities that the industry has to offer.
