The Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) is too inexperienced to realise that mining continues to define the South African economy, despite its errant behaviour. The lenience South Africa is showing to the department and its Ministry is doing South Africa no good at all. The DMR remains hell-bent on worsening the hardship of a platinum industry that is haemorrhaging and is putting the boot into gold mines on their last legs. The Witwatersrand still hosts as much gold as has been mined since 1886 – but the DMR’s fiddling is blocking all the potential access routes to better precious metal extraction. It should not be allowed to continue to do so.