A new system is needed to ensure mining money for community development is spent on broad-based development. The exhausting of the R564-million that platinum mining company Lonmin made available to the Bapo Ba Mogale community raises serious concerns, with R80-million of it seemingly being used to build an elaborate edifice for an individual. The corruption probe that has found irregularities needs to give way to far stronger steps being taken to stop the disappearance of large sums of cash meant to be spent transparently on community development. Prevention of any repeat of the damning preliminary findings of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s investigation into allegations of maladministration of the community’s royalties since 1994 is a must. Given the devastating effects of the Marikana massacre and the five-month platinum strike, the platinum belt has seen enough sadness in the last few years, which makes the financial waste all the more abominable. Madonsela found the account ransacked and empty. It is far too inadequate to say that the paymaster controlling it is the North West government. Names must be revealed and the people interrogated. Whoever was responsible for oversight must be dealt with severely. Those who continued to spend after the Public Protector’s office ordered them to stop must be brought to book. It is encouraging that Madonsela has committed herself to completing the report before her term ends in October.

Only four out of a possible seven South African ferrochrome producers are currently in production. Output has dropped to a point where demand looks like getting the upper hand. As a country that hosts the world’s lowest-cost and most environmentally friendly producers, the South African economy stands to benefit. Global stainless steel production is poised to grow at a rate of 2.6% this year and at a rate of 3.1% in 2017. Little wonder that analysts were giving ‘outperform’ ratings to the shares of local ferrochrome companies. With no major expansionary projects in the pipeline, the position is likely to sweeten going forward. South Africa’s mature chrome value chain has the capacity to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and contribute tens of billions of rands a year to South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP). In 2010, local ferrochrome producers generated 80% of the chrome value chain’s R42-billion contribution to GDP, the bulk of the chain’s 200 000 jobs and also the lion’s share of the R36-billion earned in foreign exchange.

Corporate patriotism is something that the South African economy needs in big helpings and the form of it that Sibanye Gold displayed to analysts and journalists last week was just what the doctor ordered for this country’s struggling economy. Sibanye Gold went out of its way to illustrate how mining has the capacity to float all stakeholder boats. As can be read on page 6 of this edition of Mining Weekly, Sibanye spent two days getting its message across about value creation for employees and communities without denying shareholders, and the amazing steps that can be taken to reverse environmental legacies. Mining Weekly came away from Sibanye’s West Wits mines with an upgraded impression of current mining leadership. The combined 55% compound annual growth rate that it has been able to achieve in the last three years has been accompanied by the catalysing agricultural development for near-mine communities, the sale of quaint homes to mineworkers at affordable prices and the conversion of acid mine water into CoolQuench, an impressively bottled drinking water that currently quenches the thirst of its underground employees.