Every Friday morning, SAfm's AMLive's radio anchor Nikiwe Bikitsha speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday's At the Coalface transcript:

Bikitsha: I hear that there is a new billion-rand-plus platinum mine to be built in Mpumalanga. When does this get ahead?

Creamer: The world's biggest platinum producer and the world's biggest chrome producer have come together to form a partnership that will mean a new platinum mine is to be built in Mpumalanga. This will be a billion-rand-plus operation, which will start producing round about this time next year. It is going to be very fast-tracked and it is interesting that this mine is to be built by Anglo Platinum and the London-listed Xstrata, which is so big in chrome. Anglo Platinum will give some of its Der Brochen lease area to the deal and Xstrata will give part of its adjoining Thorncliffe area and Xstrata will also actually do the mining in a mechanised fashion, because the orebodies lend themselves to mechanisation. There is also a greater platinum content than a palladium content where this mine is situated on the Eastern Limb of the Bushveld. So, it all looks to be a very good prospect for great success by these two big players, who will produce about 132 000 oz of additional platinum a year, which is not an enormous amount, but needs to be fed into the great current demand for platinum. There are good fundamentals for platinum and, of course, many suspect that Xstrata, headed by South African Mick Davis, is not going to be content with sharing half of the 132 000 oz of platinum. We are beginning to feel that Xstrata will become another platinum participant, another company that will be active in platinum, in a bigger sense, which will be good for South Africa, because demand is so good for platinum.

Bikitsha: Now, South Africa has been chosen to host a big technology transfer conference. Tell us about that.

Creamer: Yes, it is the 2nd African Technology Transfer Conference and it will take place in Pietermaritzburg from September 21-23. This is an important technology transfer within the context of roads and it was developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration of America, which decided that there should be low-cost sharing of information of roads, because roads actually create a spin-off of economic development where you can get roads developed. What this American body has done is to create this T2 concept, which is the technology-transfer concept for roads. They have done very well in Latin American helping with T2 centres also in Eastern Europe and now we are starting to see T2 in South Africa and Africa where the development of the T2 concept is coming through. We had the first big technology transfer conference in Tanzania in 2001 and now the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport will be hosting the next one in Pietermartizburg from September 21-23 to transfer a lot of this technology, to educate people, to bring training to people, to mentor graduates and also produce the appropriate technology for South Africa, including labour-based construction of roads, low-cost sealing of roads and then going to the higher tech of the intelligent management of roads as well.

Bikitsha: You have some bad news for motorists, traffic cops can now tell on their cellphone whether or not you've paid your traffic fine.

Creamer: There is new technology around where traffic cops can tell whether or not you have paid your traffic fines, by feeding in your car registration number or other ID details. This software is produced by 2Big Mobile, a company that has been working very closely with the Johannesburg Metro for some time. In fact, there are 180 traffic cops in Johannesburg that are accessed in this way. They want to spread this now to South African Police Services on a broader scale and there is also a pilot project going on in Ekurhuleni. When they feed the details into their cellphone, they can find out whether you have got stagment fines outstanding or whether you have ignored your fines. They can also then interrogate the system and find out how they should deal with specific situations, because they could have a suspicious view of what they may think may be a stolen vehicle. They then get guidelines as to how to deal with that. They are so enabled that they can process at the roadside a warrant for arrest, they can also enable an offender to pay-off those fines from the roadside, using the cellphone technology. It is already proved in Johannesburg that it is increasing the efficiency of the revenue collection and also helping with compliance.

Bikitsha: Wonders of technology never cease. Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he'll be back with us at the same time next week.

Click here to hear original audio