JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South Africa’s mining industry must tackle the thorny issue of migrant labour, says SRK Consulting South Africa chairperson Roger Dixon, who believes that the “outdated and dysfunctional” system underlies much of the post-Marikana uncertainty.
Dixon, who attended the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town, says mining’s century-old migrant-labour millstone presents a major repurational risk to South Africa as a whole.
He sees as a key element of the Marikana tragedy the “unworkable labour arrangement” of migrant miners attempting to sustain two separate lives, one at their place of work and another at their traditional rural homes.
"It’s clear to everyone that mining has a sustainable future only where it can establish its licence to operate, which is not just a matter of legal compliance but also one of social legitimacy,” says the South African head of SRK, whose 1 600 employees provide natural resource and development solutions on six continents.
The migrant-labour system, he says, is undermining the efforts of the South African mining industry to broaden its benefits.
“Mines have yet to demonstrate a sustainable model of spreading benefits fairly to all role-players,” says Dixon, who adds that government and business need to tackle the practicalities of inclusive development in mining areas.
He urges policy makers to explore alternatives to mining’s current extraction-only model and describes as valuable Dr Mamphela Ramphele’s suggestion that mining should be clustered with agriculture and manufacturing.
He puts the onus on Africans themselves to ensure that mineral returns are ploughed back into economic development of the kind that ensures long-term sustainability.