Mining has great potential to create wealth across a broad front. But South Africa is nullifying mining’s wealth potential by creating a long list of legislated rent seekers that quickly slurp up the wealth well before it has even had a chance to be created. The community of wealth consumers is so intense that, even where the State incentivises exploration, for example, through Section 12J of the Income Tax Act, nobody takes up 12J for something as high-risk as drilling into the earth’s geology to find out what is there. The legislative, political and social ecosystem is so negative when it comes to mining that, even with 12J, nobody will venture beyond existing mine fences for fear of being held up for years by corruption at regulatory level and, if not by corruption, then by the risk of regulations being changed while a project is in midstream.