Johannesburg - It is
unlikely that many of the ANC's policy proposals on state intervention in the
mining sector (Sims) will come to fruition, a business leader said on
Wednesday.
"Reality and contradictions will get in the way of the
Sims proposals," said Michael Spicer, vice-president of Business Leadership SA.
"I very much doubt if we will see many of those (come
to fruition), if any at all, because the importance of a growing industry will
become clearer as the debate proceeds."
Spicer was speaking in Johannesburg at a discussion hosted
by the FW de Klerk Foundation on the recent African National Congress policy
conference.
He said the fundamental flaw of some of the proposals was an
assumption that the mining industry "continues on autopilot" whatever
interventions occurred.
There was almost no reference to growing the mining
industry.
An alternative vision would be to ask what it would take to
turn South Africa into the number one mining country in the world.
Spicer said many facts and figures of the contribution of
the mining industry were simply not understood.
It was incumbent on the mining industry to do a much better
lobbying and communication job, he said.
Sims proposals, to be further discussed at the ANC's
conference in Mangaung in December, include a super tax on mining profits, and
merging a number of government departments to form a super-economic ministry.