[miningmx.com] – SOUTH Africa’s mining sector had placed too much emphasis on transformation of ownership to the detriment of other features of the mining charter such as procurement, and human resource management.
So said Peter Leon, a partner at attorneys Webber Wentzel who, speaking at the annual 2012 Transformation Indaba in Pretoria, said ideal black economic empowerment would also include employee share ownership, community development agreements and radical changes to company law.
“People often lose sight of this; the mining charter isn’t only concerned about ownership,’ newswire agency, Sapa, quoted Leon to have said.
“It is also concerned about procurement, enterprise and skills development, beneficiation, housing and living conditions, and human resource management.’
Leon also said that 2012 represented momentous change for the South African mining sector following the events at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in which 34 miners were shot dead by police following a protest.
Another panellist at the indaba, Peter Temane, chairman of the SA Mining Development Association, said the government did not have the capacity to enforce its BEE policies, Sapa reported.
“The objectives of the BEE legislation are noble. Our government does not have the capacity to enforce these laws, whether it is deliberate or by default,’ he said.
