Investment-starved but well-endowed South African mining can be healed by the introduction of good new government policy. Local mining’s failure to keep pace with mining jurisdictions elsewhere relates to pernicious policy rather than palpable potential. As the Chamber of Mines of South Africa points out in its ‘What if’ survey, investment will follow competitive, stable and predictable policy. Those standing in the way of such progress are depriving every South African of greater employment, better education and improved socioeconomics and should be moved out of the way.