Photo by: Duane Daws
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – As stakeholders sit down to resolve the current impasse among platinum producers, workers and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), KPMG on Monday reiterated the need for improved dialogue.
Over 80 000 workers at platinum producers Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin downed tools on Thursday in an AMCU-led strike for higher wages.
The strikes were a “clear indicator” of a need for improved dialogue in an industry already strained by decreasing productivity and the continued devaluation of the rand, said KPMG global head of mining Wayne Jansen.
“A successful mining industry in South Africa is in the interest of all stakeholders that are directly and indirectly linked to it. Yet, the industry finds itself in a difficult time, with a future that has perhaps never before been so uncertain,” he said.
Jansen averred that “charting a new path” for the sector required collaborative effort from all stakeholders.
The departments of Labour and Mineral Resouces, the strike-hit platinum producers and AMCU had kicked off three-day government-initiated talks in Pretoria in an effort to resolve the labour-company dispute.
Jansen also believed that the current issues facing the sector would “take centre stage” at this year’s Mining Indaba, which would take place from February 3 to 6, in Cape Town.