Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - Parliament’s mineral resources committee may suggest revisions to the mining charter in the world’s top platinum producer to ensure workers and communities receive more money from mineral wealth, the Business Day newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The mining charter aims to address the imbalances of the apartheid past by giving previously excluded blacks a greater stake in an industry that built Africa’s largest economy and now accounts for about 4% to 6% of gross domestic product.
The newspaper quoted committee chairperson Fred Gona as saying the recommendations would be finalised next year and then taken to industry to enlist its support.
“We discovered that companies have made pledges in terms of social and labour plans... but on the ground they have nothing to show for it when it comes to the standard of living of people,” Gona was quoted as saying.
Gona also told the newspaper he thought workers needed to be more involved in black economic empowerment.
The industry claims it has already achieved the 2014 target of 26% black ownership but the department of mineral resources says it is closer to 9%, based on 2009 data.
There have also been concerns of sweetheart deals in the sector that have benefited the politically connected and not the country’s poor black majority.
Poverty and joblessness are widespread in mining communities, fuelling calls for nationalisation by factions in the ANC.
But nationalisation talk is expected to fade after the ANC expelled its leading advocate, youth league leader Julius Malema, for five years for bringing the party into disrepute.
Mining houses operating in South Africa include global giants like Anglo American [JSE:AGL] and Rio Tinto.
