[miningmx.com] – SOUTH Africa mines minister, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, is to urge the country’s gold mining sector to avoid a strike over wages and had reached out to Eskom and its shareholder, the public enterprises ministry, to avoid the closure of the Optimum Coal mine by Glencore.
These were two of the urgent issues Ramatlhodi said he would address in a two-day emergency meeting that opened this morning and was attended by unions, including Joseph Mathunjwa, president of the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU), and industry leaders Chris Griffith, CEO of Amplats and Chamber of Mines chairman, Mike Teke.
“It’s about jobs, jobs, jobs,” said Ramalthodi in a media briefing before the meeting began, east of Pretoria. “No-one should leave without committing something. It is not a exercise in finger pointing, I hope not,” he added.
Asked whether efforts would be made to lift the suspension of mining at Glencore’s Optimum Mine, which is due to be placed in business rescue proceedings, Ramalthodi said discussions had taken place throughout the night.
“Since yesterday there have been discussions. We hope the directive will be followed and we can lift the suspension as a matter of urgency,” he said. Glencore had not done enough to engage government on its retrenchment plans, he said.
Glencore announced that a dispute with Eskom over pricing of five million tonnes of coal a year to Hendrina power station over several years had been fruitless.
Eskom had subsequently laid a claim with Glencore for the effective repayment of the coal cost owing to it falling below specifications. Glencore said the impact of this penalty was to price the coal supplied to Eskom at about $1 per tonne.
Ramatlhodi also said that he had been in communication with Brian Molefe, CEO of Eskom, as well as Lynne Brown, minister of public enterprises, regarding how talks in respect of a dispute over coal qualities and pricing at Optimum could be resolved.
“The meetings that we will convene include Eskom, the Department of Trade and Industry and [the minerals [department, DMR] to find a comprehensive solution to all these issues. We hope very much that we find solutions,” he said.
The emergency meeting comes amid a torrid first half of 2015 for South Africa’s mining sector with the National Union of Mineworkers saying it feared up to 20,000 jobs could be lost in the sector owing to retrenchments and restructuring.
Lonmin has said 6,000 jobs are at risk at its Rustenburg mines while Anglo American unveiled a widespread downscaling that effects its global offices including Johannesburg.
As part of the government’s commitment to reducing job losses, Ramalthodi said it would look at ways of finding harmonisation between different departments.
This included examining the one to two-year backlog in the issuance of water use licences from the Department of Water & Sanitation that could affect the ability of ten coal companies supplying Eskom.
“Let’s not shut down these mines now as that would only contribute to job loses. We will work with Water Affairs to look at water licences,” he said.
An urgent matter is the current impasse in gold industry wage negotiations following the formal rejection yesterday by AMCU of a ‘final offer’ from the Chamber of Mines which promised a basic R12,500 per month to entry-level workers after three years.
Said Ramalthodi: “We are appealing to companies to be transparent and for unions to negotiate with reasonable prudence.
“We need to save jobs. That is the ministry appeal to various parties. We as a ministry do not negotiate wages, however, we can give an opinion. Let’s find one another somewhere,” he said.
