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Engendering trust among mining sector stakeholders essential for economic growth and employment

14th October 2016

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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The opening lines of the ZambeZi Protocol were read out by Sibanye Gold CEO Neal Froneman at the start of last week’s Joburg Indaba.

These speak of Africa’s mining sector being in crisis, owing to a lack of trust between mining companies, government and the nations they lead.

The warning sounded is that failure to tackle this crisis will result in serious, adverse implications for both economic growth and employment prospects just when the continent’s needs for these are rapidly increasing.

Published by the Brenthurst Foundation, the protocol sets out a template for Africa to realise optimum value from its vast mineral wealth on a foundation of trust and constructive partnership.

It is seen as a means of securing competitiveness and sustainability for a continent that hosts 95% of world platinum, 90% of chromite, 80% of phosphates, 60% of gem diamond reserves, half the cobalt, 28% of vanadium, 25% of manganese, 23% of titanium and 20% of gold reserves.

It is still a continent where exploration can yield so much more.

The Zambezi Protocol challenges all to adopting honesty and integrity as the business strategy.

What Froneman believes the mining sector and countries need to do next is to tackle the factors that are inhibiting mineral industry competitiveness and its potential to improve.

These are regulatory uncertainty, unstable labour relations and poor socioeconomic community development conditions.

Business needs to think about, in Froneman’s words, how it has contributed to the malaise and play a leadership role in reversing mining’s decline.

Business needs to play a leadership role by acknowledging its past as the flywheel of the national economy but also as one that failed to act humanely and in a morally correct manner through the practice of using migrant labour and the imposition of job reservation, which deprived people of colour and women of career opportunities.

The industry should now commit itself to a very different way of doing business, with past injustice acknowledged, forgiveness sought and the industry’s legacy of mistrust unwound through faith and leadership.

A vision with the African Mining Vision as the starting point needs to be agreed and fundamentally Africa needs to shift its focus from mineral extraction to much broader developmental imperatives in which mineral policy is integrated with developmental policy.

What this means in practice is using Africa’s vast mineral resources as a catalyst for development so that it can play a transformative role.

To do this, appropriate socioeconomic development linkages that meet national and regional developmental objectives need to be built.

Such linkages must improve equity and transparency in revenue collection and distribution, integrate small-scale mining in rural economies, develop infrastructure and foster the manufacture of products that support societal needs.

South Africa’s own modernised mining vision is clearly aligned to the African Mining Vision and will be realised when all stakeholders are aligned and contribute towards the industry’s success instead of narrow self-interest.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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