THE implementation of South Africa’s long-awaited digital and transparent mining rights system has been delayed again, with the new launch date now scheduled for October 2025, according to a report today by News24.
Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe announced the three-month postponement during his budget vote speech in Parliament on Wednesday, citing the complexity of the system’s development.
“This is a delicate process that requires precision and quality assurance, and it is taking longer than we had anticipated,” Mantashe told MPs. “Consequently, this has resulted in a need to reschedule the phased rollout of the system in the Western Cape by a further three months.”
The Democratic Alliance’s James Lorimer questioned whether the delays were deliberate, suggesting corruption concerns. “The new system should have started already, but questions remain over the extent to which it will be transparent,” Lorimer said during the parliamentary debate. “We know there is corruption in the licensing process, we doubt the new system will end it because the political will to do so is not there.”
Defending the project’s progress, Mantashe outlined key achievements including successful requirements mapping, system architecture establishment, strengthened cybersecurity protocols, and an advanced “Grid” solution to minimize mining area overlap between applicants.
The minister emphasised that system integrity depends on accurate data migration from the old system, ensuring it “reflects the reality on the ground insofar as ownership of rights is concerned.”
To accelerate progress, the department has allocated additional resources and enlisted the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s services, said News24. The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources previously signed a service-level agreement with Canada’s PMG Consortium to develop the database.
Mantashe assured that the Western Cape experience would inform other provinces’ rollouts without significantly impacting the overall project timeline.
