SA parliament mum on MPRDA limbo

[miningmx.com] – Four months into 2015 South Africa’s parliament is keeping mum on when deliberations regarding the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Amendment (MPRDA) bill will resume.

In January this year, president Jacob Zuma referred the contentious bill back to parliament, citing lack of public participation and some possible unconstitutional aspects.

Sahlulele Luzipo, chairperson of the parliament’s portfolio committee on mineral resources, acknowledged today that parliamentary processes were holding up progress on the bill. “Unfortunately it doesn’t entirely depend on us (the mining committee),’ Luzipo said during a committee meeting at parliament.

“We have taken a resolution that we won’t partake in actual discussions until the House of Traditional Leaders and the National Council of Provinces have held public participation processes. So, we’re stuck with this issue.’

Further deliberations on the bill, Luzipo said, could only take place once the National House of Traditional Leaders has had sight of it as it had an impact on customary law or the customs of traditional communities.

Similarly, the NCOP – effectively the upper house of South Africa’s parliament – will have to reschedule public consultation, and the outcomes could delay the process even further.

James Lorimer, the shadow minister of mineral resources for the Democratic Alliance, is of the view that this is merely a smokescreen.

“I’m fascinated by this pure procedural impasse which is all very well, but I don’t buy it. If there was really the political will to get this thing settled it would happen.’

Every time he asked about the progress on the MPRDA he gets the same answer, Lorimer said.

“This is pure speculation, but I think there’s a fight between the Department of Mineral Resources on one side and the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) which wants the aspects of the bill relating to the developmental pricing reinserted.

“The DMR, to its credit, is resisting it, because they know the disaster that will befall the mining industry if they do this,’ he said.