Latest estimates indicate that South Africa still has a colossal volume of hundreds of millions of tons of gold ore in the ground. In addition, there are tens of millions tons of high-grade ore locked in underground support pillars, accessible from current infrastructure and amenable to profitable extraction using mechanised techniques. That is the prize waiting to be grasped. But to do so is going to require a new way of doing things that labour and government must endorse. Read on page 17 of this edition of Mining Weekly of Chamber of Mines VP Neal Froneman making it clear that, if mining continues as is, all this gold will remain in the ground unmined, and 200 000 jobs will be lost as gold mining peters out. South Africans should put their heads together and come up with a technical solution. Research has resumed at the old Comro site in Richmond, Johannesburg, and technical programmes must now follow to provide both the mining and manufacturing skills.

South32 president and COO Africa Mike Fraser presented a forceful speech at the Investing in African Mining Indaba when he pleaded for government to provide the right conditions to enable mining companies to deliver inclusive growth to benefit all stakeholders. A supportive legislative, regulatory and administrative environment to ensure an outcome that floats all boats is what is needed to unlock South African mining’s huge growth potential. Wonderful mineral resources still abound to help cut unemployment, narrow the inequality gap and dent poverty. Fraser, like so many, is totally convinced that creating shared value through effective collaboration is eminently achievable. He sees improving productivity as being critical to ensuring the creation of shared value and the lack of productivity as one reason why South Africa’s ranking as a mining investment destination does not equate to its mineral wealth.

Meanwhile, it should be shouted from the rooftops that a changing world needs to be met with more South African resilience. Global trade is falling, cross-border capital flows are decreasing and immigration laws are tightening. Global economist Dambisa Moyo put a lot of concern into the 6 000-plus people at last week’s Mining Indaba that deglobalisation is real and that it is threatening to bite deep and hard. The introduction of as many as 644 new constraining measures around the world has caused a $2.6-trillion decline in cross-border capital flows in two years, accompanied by a 9% decline in bank lending. As countries like the US, under President Donald Trump, hike import tariffs, a question mark rises over infrastructure funding, especially in emerging markets around the world, which are already hit by the most significant withdrawal of capital since 1988. African mining could find itself in a quandary as a result, in a world of 65-million refugees, the highest number since World War Two.