[miningmx.com] – OUTGOING Chamber of Mines president, Mark Cutifani, has urged the mining sector to “work closely” with the South African government on the findings of an audit into the industry’s compliance with the targets of the 2004 mining charter.
“Next year will be a milestone year for the Mining Charter and, as I speak, the DMR [Department of Mineral Resources] is embarking on conducting audits to determine the progress we have made since 2010,” said Cutifani.
“This time around we need to work very closely with the DMR to ensure that there is mutual agreement on the outcomes of the audit process,” he said. Cutifani was speaking at the chamber’s annual general meeting in Johannesburg today.
The chamber said in August 2011 that black ownership among its members averaged 28% which already exceeded the 26% target set by the Mining Charter when it was written in 2004. At the time, the South African government appeared to disagree, however.
The DMR estimated at the time that by 2009 – the halfway point of the charter – only 8.9% of mines were owned by blacks, well below the target of 15% for that point.
And as recently as March 2012, mines minister Susan Shabangu commented that not enough had been done by the industry in terms of meeting the edicts of the mining charter, a companion document to the Minerals & Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA).
“We have noted some progress in respect of ownership, [but] meaningful ownership has not been achieved,’ Shabangu told the Association of Mine Managers of South Africa in 2011. “The underlying empowerment funding models have resulted in the actual ownership being tied up in loans.
“Accordingly the net value of a large proportion of empowerment deals is often negative, due to the high interest rates on loans,’ she said.
Cutifani told the chamber today, however, that the mining industry had gone well beyond any other sector in its transformation goals. Procurement to black-owned companies ranged between 39% to 67% on capital goods, services and consumable goods. This compared to targets of 20% to 50%, Cutifani said.
“Whatever our shortcomings, and we know we have a way to go, we believe the mining industry is currently more extensively transformed than any of South Africa’s other major industrial sectors,” said Cutifani.
