Emerging miners should “make it their business” to join a supportive industry group as they will struggle to make ends meet alone in South Africa’s tough mining industry.

This was emphasised by Chamber of Mines (CoM) head of transformation and stakeholder relations Vusi Mabena at the Junior Mining and Exploration Conference, in Johannesburg, last week.

While he maintained that an emerging miner might not find value at first in a grouping, once the miner was inducted into a grouping’s programmes, its challenges tended to become those of all group members.

The CoM’s objective was to be the voice of the mining industry as a whole and a catalyst for industry performance improvement. The chamber also played an advocacy role by influencing debate on policy challenges in South Africa’s mining industry.

One benefit of being a member of an industry group was that the forum provided members with timely insights and awareness in the event that the mining jurisdiction changed. “While emerging miners may be focused on their projects, the changes to the mining jurisdiction often affect the emerging miner.

“Therefore, if you belong to a group, these changes can be picked up quickly and early on enough and reacted to as a group. This reaction allows a group to bring about change or appeal to government and, in turn, ensure that government listens,” said Mabena.

Some of the most recent challenges dealt with by the CoM included ransformation, eco- nomic, environmental, health, skills development, sustainability development and safety.

The CoM addressed these challenges through a number of initiatives and policy committees.

The initiatives included a learning hub, which identified and addressed the challenges affecting, industry as a whole, and developing leading best practices for CoM members to apply, work towards or adopt. It also hosted a CEO roundtable on health and safety, which resulted in a reduction in fatalities in the mining industry.

The CoM also coordintates inputs to solve infrastructural bottlenecks, which enabled big and small voices to engage on the challenge, and provide skills development through Mining Qualifications Authority learning materials.

The other roles of the CoM included dealing more effectively with legacies of the past, helping the mining sector “get its house in order” and developing a positive contribution model to help the mining industry to deal with challenges.

This was undertaken by the policy committees under the CoM’s Mining Industry Growth, Development and Employment Task Team, which included transformation, human resource development, infrastructure, carbon tax, platinum industry challenges and a peace and stability accord committee. These com- mittees ensured regularised leadership engagement between stakeholders to ensure outcomes that are in the interest of the industry.

The CoM currently includes 72 members, four associations, 21 members that served on the chamber council and 11 emerging miners.