JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Gold mining in South Africa has a good future, but it needs to be nurtured if the country is to reverse its slide down the global gold-production ladder, says Harmony Gold CEO Graham Briggs.

South Africa has fallen to fifth position behind China, Australia, the US and Russia, after occupying the top spot for more than a century until 2007.

“We must stop dropping down the rankings,” says Briggs, who adds that South Africa’s good gold prospects are being held back by the lack of an enabling environment, which is sapping up the bulk of managements’ time.

“You have to defend your wickets all the time instead of trying to score some runs,” says Briggs.

Harmony has gold deposits in Evander that need to be developed, but the company is unable to persuade its shareholders to invest the $1-billion that is required to do so, because of the inhibiting environment in which South African mining finds itself.

Briggs says that gold mining has the potential to be “very profitable” well into the future if properly nurtured.

“People in South Africa don’t realise how important gold mining still is. They don’t realise the employment knock-on affects and the amount of tax that it pays.

“These are incredibly important contributions and the government should not be allowed to lose sight of gold’s importance. We need to work hard on the creation of an enabling environment,” he tells Mining Weekly Online in a video interview.

Despite global gold mine production growing by 3,8% in 2010 to 2 689 t, South Africa’s gold output slumped by 6,4% to 191 t, from nearly 205 t in 2009, allowing Russia to move into fourth position and South Africa to fall to the number-five spot.
 

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