July 9, 2018 - South Africa is likely to finalize its draft Mining Charter towards the end of the year, Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe said on Sunday.

“Our view is that by October, November we must have a Charter in place,” said Mantashe.

Addressing a media briefing at the end of a two-day Summit on the Mining Charter, Mantashe said the draft Charter which was published on June 15 will be in place towards the end of the year.

At the publishing of the Charter in June, the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) said the public has until July 27, 2018 to submit their comments on the draft before it is finalized and gazetted.

The new Charter proposes to raise black ownership at permit-holding mining companies to 30% from 26% within five years and 1% of profits paid to employees and communities.

At the end of the two-day summit held at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, it was announced that the period of public comments on the Charter has been extended to the end of August.

In the meantime the draft said the Minister will be taken to the Ministry of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation for a socioeconomic impact assessment.

“That is not going to wait until we complete the process of consultation, so it can go ahead and we will start that. We will also take it to Cabinet as it’s the final arbiter,” said Mantashe, adding that the DMR is also going to look into areas of how to align the Charter to the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Codes.

The Minister, who took over the portfolio following a February Cabinet reshuffle, said that he was satisfied with the progress made around the Charter so far.

“Within three months of my arrival I finished consultation on the Charter, we are having this summit having fought the very intensive process of consultation and basically we had a draft Charter by June. We are now in the process of post drafting which will take us to October November,” he said.

He said that the gazetting of the Charter later in the year was not moving the goal posts in respect to the matter.

“It’s not a total shifting of the goal posts, it’s a question of appreciating that we have done what should have been done and now we must go through the more involved government processes including approval of the Charter by Cabinet before gazetting it,” he said in response to a question.

Investor Sentiment

Speaking on investor sentiment regarding the country’s mining industry, Mantashe said South Africans have a negative attitude towards themselves.

“The most costly thing is our ability to talk ourselves down, that scares investors away. We must begin to talk positively about ourselves, if we don’t do that, we are not going to grow,” he said.

He added that it was time that mining companies started putting impetus on the relationship they have with communities in which they mine.

“Running mining companies in South Africa in a modern way where you invest in relationship with communities you’re mining in can’t scare investors away. Mining companies must begin to appreciate that developing a concrete relationship with employees is not a cost it’s an investment,” he said.

In his comments, the Minister alluded to the five month strike experienced by platinum producer Lonmin, back in 2014.

“If they had a good relationship with employees they wouldn’t have had a five month strike.”

Building Trust

Minister Mantashe said the mining sector was starting to build trust among each other, saying that the two-day summit placed stakeholders under one roof.

“We are beginning to build trust with one another. Trust is a process issue, it will have to be built on an ongoing basis. The trust levels are better today than three months ago,” he said.