The Junior Mining Exploration Fund just launched by the Industrial Development Corporation and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) is a start but must not end up as the finish. The addition of a flow-through tax incentive, even if tiny to begin with, would stimulate exploration more forcefully.
The Ministry of Finance once publicly promised a flow-through-type incentive to boost exploration, but later opted to withdraw it in favour of its own locally concocted trash that proved hopeless. At roughly the same time, the DMRE also opted to design its own cadastre, which was also a disaster. These huge Finance Ministry and DMRE errors set this country’s mining industry back so badly that it has become a pale shadow of what it could be.
With critical minerals now the rage, the DMRE appears to have learnt from its mistake by taking on what looks like a far more promising cadastre design team, but it seems that nobody can ever get the Treasury to budge. A gradually improving flow-through tax stimulus linked to listings on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange would make the world of difference.