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

Kamwendo: The African Mining Network sounded a strong call this week for full openness and accountability in the mineral licencing sector.

Creamer: It was a very interesting meeting at the African Mining Network and it was addressed by Bobby Godsell who is the outgoing chairperson of Business Leadership South Africa and a person who spent most of his life in mining with Anglo American and also with AngloGold Ashanti. He was saying that the biggest problem at the moment is the opacity of the regulator and he called for openness and accountability.

He also used the word honesty, because he is saying that there is a lot of phoniness around the transformation and a holding back of rights in order to have this transformation, but it is not really working. They are saying that the system and database is just not good enough and should go for a database that has been developed in South Africa and used everywhere in Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia and even in Greenland and it was developed in South Africa.

When people apply for rights it is open that everybody can see that this is done on the Internet. Then the reply from the department must also be done on the Internet. We know in British Columbia and Canada they have gone over to Internet interface. You don’t have to go into coffee rooms as people are complaining and saying they have got to meet in far-flung places to try and get rights and find out what is going on.

This has to change for our mining industry to grow, because we are being very seriously setback. There was also a call by Godsell for some sort of public private partnership around exploration, because there just isn’t any exploration, because of the high risk associated with it. If, as there can be in other countries, some sort of State leadership, but then private sector involvement where you work together.

We always think of Canada, it has been so successful with the flow-through scheme where people like taxi drivers even invest in exploration, because they get certain tax breaks. It does work elsewhere. We see that Australia is following the Canadian model.

We were promised this Canadian model, it was promised by the Finance Minister in the budget way back and then the next year he just said no we have got a better plan. That plan has not been better by any means. It is so parsimonious in the extreme that not one mining company has actually availed itself of any of the incentives that are on offer. A relook is needed and getting rid of this opacity and not having this backward looking destructive downward spiral that we are going through and turning it into a win-win situation. That is what people are looking for now.

Kamwendo: Diamond giant De Beers is throwing more money behind its relentless search for the next big South African diamond mine.

Creamer: Diamond mines are becoming like needles in a haystack. Fortunately, De Beers in South Africa has got so much geological data to call on that it is able to go on an exploration move as so many other people aren’t. It is now searching in both close to its mines and in greenfield operations to get that next big mine.

As we stand now De Beers only has two operating diamond mines in South Africa. One is at Venetia in Limpopo and the other one is at Voorspoed in the Free State. They want to add to that and have a good team of geologists working. They have increased their spend per year from R30-million to R40-million a year.

They say that they are prepared to throw a lot more behind that in order to get the next big mine, which everybody is really looking for in South Africa. We need to get ahead of the Canadians, because they have just opened a couple of diamond mines there in the last few months. They did close one, but they also opened two more. We as De Beers in South Africa need to make sure we stay number two and not allow Canada to get ahead of us.

At the same time we see a lot of development at Venetia mine. They are spending $2-billion there, it is a major investment. There is 2km of decline and they know that they are going to be very automated. They will take proven automated technology so there will be driverless trucks underground there. There will be automated drilling and every new modcon they can get hold of before the final decisions are taken in 2018, they will incorporate into that mine.

It will be very much a modern mine that will be very good for South Africa, because it is a rich mine. It actually provides 40% of South Africa’s diamonds at the moment. The real hope is to find a new mine and they are holding thumbs.

Kamwendo: The newly proclaimed African Mining Vision is beginning to take centre stage across the continent.

Creamer: The African Mining Vision says that we mustn’t just extract our minerals and export them, we must do something more. We have got to have an industrial link and this vision has now been accepted throughout the 54 countries in Africa.

That is much needed, because Africans have got to sing from the same hymn sheet on this otherwise with the patchwork of different countries and people doing different things, the continent can lose out. This continent mustn’t lose out.

We have got a billion plus people and they are setting out not only to have this vision but also to have a centre that implements that vision. Running with it is the idea of that has been brought up by the Brenthurst Foundation of this Zambezi Protocol, where we create a new concept around mining that is inclusive.

We can hear the world over the World Bank is saying we can’t just have elites taking everything anymore; it has got to be spread. Even the International Monetary Fund saying the same things. We hear this from all over the world now that the next big developments have got to be inclusive that is why this African Mining Vision is so important, because mining can leverage so much on this continent.

It is such a minerals-rich continent and if we can do it in a way that promotes skills development and people and also has this industrial link, we will get away from those colonial legacies of the past and the errors that we have made in South Africa. I know we are sitting in Joburg and this is an example of how gold can build a city and if you go to San Francisco you will see the same thing.

But, people are crying out for cities now in Africa for infrastructure, so when you build those mines it needs a public private partnership where you get all the water, roads and electricity at the same time, so that we Africans can benefit.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.