The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is perturbed that year-in and year-out, the mining industry hold a mining indaba in Cape Town with no positive and tangible spin-offs. The indaba has become a cheap talk-shop with no fundamental change emanating from its deliberations.

Though it is held annually, the fatalities in the mining industry remain sky-high with the 2011 fatalities being at 123 down with only five from 128 in 2010. Many mining companies continue to work against government ‘s job creation plan retrenching thousands of workers. DRD has just threatened to retrench 1800 workers, Uranium One and Harmony ‘s Evander are just some of the many who are hell-bent at increasing joblessness. The inequalities in society remain and the communities are exploited with no tangible returns though mining takes place in their vicinity.

The National Union of Mineworkers views the mining indaba as a platform where captains of the mining industry gather to lament and cry foul about the reduction of their ill-gotten gains. For example, almost all of them cry foul that safety stoppages are a hindrance to production whilst they fail to improve the safety standards in their mines.

It is disappointing that an industry that brought nationalisation upon itself through dragging its feet on the transformation front continues to cry foul about super-taxes proposed in the ANC ‘s nationalisation research and want to reduce investment in mining to a cheap loot.

The NUM rejects the industry ‘scare-tactics that investors would disappear if debates on the future of mining are put on the national agenda and pours cold water over the industry ‘s claim that it is head and shoulder above when it comes to transformation.

It is in that view that the NUM concludes that the Mining indaba is nothing but a cheap gathering of the bourgeoisie gathering to fool the poor that everything is being done to offer redress.