JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The National Development Plan (NDP) required an accelerated effort towards ensuring mining's continued contribution to economic growth and the elimination of the triple challenge of unemployment, inequality and poverty, South Africa’s new Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi said on Friday.

Speaking at the eightieth anniversary celebration of the State-owned Council for Mineral Technology (Mintek), Ramatlhodi reaffirmed mining’s centrality as a driver of crucial economic growth and supported strong continued investment in the development of critical skills.

“Our aspirations for the growth and development of our economy, as espoused in the NDP, require that we accelerate all efforts to ensure that mining continues to contribute meaningfully, and assists us in eliminating the triple challenge of unemployment, inequality and poverty,” the Minister said.

In view of South Africa’s mineral reserves being considerable, it was incumbent on Mintek to lead the way in mineral and metallurgical research and development (R&D).

“We live in a fast-changing world, which means that we must either aim to be the very best as far as R&D in the mining and metallurgical sectors is concerned, or risk becoming irrelevant,” he warned.

As Mintek’s area of work required specialist expertise, South Africa needed to ensure that it had an adequate pool of critical skills going into the future and Ramatlhodi urged the board and management of the research body to nurture and promote young talent.

He was pleased to learn that Mintek would be expanding its learnership programmes by enriching its graduate development interventions and intensifying the training of artisans and technical professionals.

“Continued investment in this area cannot be overemphasised,” Ramatlhodi said, recalling that Mintek had started off as a small minerals research laboratory at the University of Witwatersrand and had become an organisation with strong public–private partnerships.

The Minister urged Mintek to continue to technologically underpin downstream mineral beneficiation to ensure that the country maximised its mineral endowment, in line with its industrialisation strategy.

Several African mining authorities, including the Geological Survey of Tanzania and the Ministries of Mines in Malawi and Sudan had shown interest in partnering with Mintek, whose products and services were used in countries such as Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Notable Mintek achievements of the past decade included the installation of online cyanide-measurement systems at gold mines in Peru, Mexico and Tasmania in 2004; the piloting of large-scale heap bioleaching technology for copper sulphide, in southern Iran, in 2005; the unveiling of a nanotechnology centre for the production of platinum catalysts for fuel cells in 2007; the implementation of a job-creating ceramic strategy for South Africa in 2008; and the introduction of technology for the recovery of industrial water from acid mine drainage and the greater recovery of nickel from waste streams in more recent years.

“We expect no less from you in the next eighty years and we look forward to working with you and the sector as a whole as we continue to move South Africa forward,” the Minister concluded.