Big push to revive mining reputation

19-09-2014
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Fin24
Source

Johannesburg - South Africa's mining industry faces a number of challenges that require determined and systematic resolution, Deputy Mineral Resources Minister Godfrey Oliphant said on Thursday.

"Importantly, our success will depend largely on the degree to which all the stakeholders participate in finding effective solutions and commit to re-establishing the industry's reputation and restoring its growth path," Oliphant said.

In a speech prepared for delivery at Kumba stakeholder day, Oliphant said there were a number of issues within the industry that required both political and technical leadership.

These included the need to boost exploration and prospecting investment, workforce health and safety, rehabilitating the environmental legacy, illegal mining, and benefication and revitalisation of mining regions.

"Preceding all these pressing items is a far more strategic issue, the No1 on my list, namely the need to revive the reputation of our mining industry and its global branding," Oliphant said.

The events of the past couple of years, in particular the prolonged strike in the platinum sector earlier this year, seriously damaged the reputation of South Africa's mining industry and its governance structures.

While it was tempting to blame certain sector players, it was of national interest all key players instead focused on their collective responsibility to safeguard the industry, its sustainability and its global competitiveness.

"The urgent rehabilitation of the industry's branding and its comparative positioning remain the topmost priority," the deputy minister said.

"To this end, we should certainly learn from our own lessons of experience and that of the others."

Structural issues in the industry needed a collective and effective resolution.

"In fact, there is a real risk that if matters are left to uncoordinated socio-political and financial markets, the industry will evolve along the trajectory of capital intensification and resource under-utilisation," he said.

The result would be a steady contraction in the sector's employment level and other social benefits.

"It is clear that the prosperity of the nation, in many of our regions and our social welfare are greatly affected by the developments in the mining sector," Oliphant said.

"This is particularly so if we consider the vast opportunities and the great potential that the mining sector has to offer."

Careful analysis of South Africa's modern economic history would show the sector has had a pivotal role in the modernisation of the South African economy.

"Much of our country's industrialisation has been and remains due to our resourceful and robust mineral sector endowment," Oliphant said.

"It is therefore a national imperative that we focus on the ways and means of unlocking the inherent potential of the sector at the same time that we deal with the outstanding structural issues facing the industry."