There is a greater socioeconomic issue behind the increasing incidents involving illegal mineworkers, or zama- zamas, and perhaps the time has come to formalise the sector to bring these artisanal and small-scale miners into the mainstream economy, law firm Hogan Lovells partner and mining head Warren Beech tells Mining Weekly.

The high levels of unemployment and the significant number of job cuts in industry in recent years could be driving people to seek out an income as zama-zamas, he suggests.

“The landscape has changed fundamentally over the past couple of years, owing to a socioeconomic context that is driving it more than it did in the past.”
Beech points out that, in recent years, these miners have been operating not only in the typical abandoned or closed mines but also – and increasingly so – at mines that are legally operated by mining companies.

“Illegal mining has been around for a long time. It has been done at varying scales and in relation to easily accessible reserves, typically in gold mines,” he adds. These mines are selected because the historical mining methods used makes it easier for zama-zamas to access the remaining resources.

Beech notes that this practice is not likely to end, particularly since there are a number of abandoned and closed mines that zama- zamas can use to alleviate their socioeconomic problems.

Further, there is an organisational structure that allows for the resources to be sold on the market through nefarious channels. Zama-zamas sell their products to individuals who refine the resources and sell them to the syndicate-type organisations that make significantly more money than the zama-zamas.

“We need to understand the reality that illegal mining, as it is called, is here and it is not going away,” he states, adding that the typical response of arresting zama-zamas does not work because those individuals who do get arrested are soon out of jail and “back at work”, and the criminal justice system simply does not have the capacity to deal with these matters.

Beech suggests that the best solution would be to formalise the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, which would require changes to mining legislation, including the national resource legislation, namely the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) and the Mining Charter.

Government would not have to reinvent the wheel, should it decide to formalise those sectors, he notes, adding that the policies of Ecuador, for example, whose artisanal and small-scale mining sectors are the historical dominant producers of its natural resources, could be emulated and adapted by South Africa.

Providing a legislative platform would also allow for the industry to be regulated, thus pushing out the syndicates that sell the product, and creating an additional revenue stream in the local economy. Often, the resources mined by zama-zamas cannot be mined using current large-scale mining methods, which could result in South Africa’s resource endowment being better exploited.

This would also assist in achieving the national goals of transforming the mining industry and providing economic access to previously disadvantaged South Africans, as more black-owned mining companies could enter the market at artisanal and small-scale mining level.

To achieve this vision, Beech suggests that all stakeholders in the mining industry should come together to support the formalisation of the already existing “parallel” artisanal and small-scale mining sector.

The Department of Mineral Resources would be in a position to regulate the sector and improve the environmental and occupational health and safety of zama-zamas. Mining houses could provide technical support to assist with the productivity and safety of artisanal and small-scale miners.

To ensure that their interests are looked after would require the involvement of organised labour, which could also provide an important link between zama-zamas and the communities they represent, and government.

Beech concludes that, for the artisanal and small-scale mining sector to succeed, it is key to have a network of supportive stakeholders with a shared vision of improving the lives of all South Africans through its natural resources and which the Constitution states are to be distributed to the benefit of all its people.