[miningmx.com] – LABOUR stability would be installed at South Africa’s mines following a draft agreement between labour, the government and the mining sector, said Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan (Venkat), CEO of AngloGold Ashanti.
“We’re getting close to reaching agreement that will bring stability,” said Venkat of a draft agreement – the Framework Agreement for a Sustainable Mining Industry – due to be signed on June 26 when the parties reconvene following an earlier summit meeting on June 14.
Labour, government and industry leaders met in Pretoria in which they committed to address mine protest and violence.
One of the provisions of the framework was an agreement to consider “mechanisms of law” that would protect minority unions on the country’s mines.
Venkat believed that a repeat of the violence last year at the mines of Lonmin’s Marikana mine in which 45 miners lost their lives in mine protests.
“Labour relations is less about wage negotiations, but more about whether the rule of law will dominate and whether mines can operate safely,” said Venkat. “I think unions and government are much better prepared than last year.
“Stakeholders are coming together to deal with broad issues including community relations and how deal with law and order so that can provide the cardinal principle in South Africa that the worker can go to work without being intimidated,” he said.
Venkat added that once investors saw the framework agreement was the start of a new labour dispensation, invesor sentiment would improve as it had in other instances where South African had overcome challenges.
He listed a series of phases in South Africa’s mining sector since 2004 where scepticism had been overcome including the implementation of royalties, the power crisis in 2008, and the threat of nationalisation.
“We have not had a single power outage at any mine since 2008, the nationalisation crisis has passed. As investors see this [the implementation of the framework agreement] sentiment will change as it has in the past,” Venkat said.
Venkat added that it was wrong to think that productivity would continue to fall in South Africa’s mining sector.
“We are working on technology that extract nothing but the gold. That comes with huge productivity increases, and it opens us job opportunities in the longer term in the sector.
“There is huge option value in the ground if get our mindset right. It is not without its challenges, but have these challenges in all jurisdictions where we operate,” he said.
