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A miner sits on a wall as a giant excavator drives past at a mine.
South Africa must push its global minerals exploration quantum by up to five percent from around one percent currently, if it’s to achieve meaningful economic growth and job creation. That’s the word from the Council for Mineral Technology (MINTEK). This, as Minerals and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe announced that the Minerals Resources Development Bill of 2025 will be gazetted on Tuesday.
A new bill is in the pipeline as the country aims to give clarity on the critical minerals’ strategy, following the controversial 2022 Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act. Critical minerals like platinum, manganese, chrome, ore and coal are set to come under the spotlight for exploration.
“South Africa, our target is to attract 5% of global exploration budget. We are sitting at less than 1%, about o.82%. That figure has been declining for the past 20 years. And it is important for us to improve on that,” says Dr Molefi Motuku, Mintek CEO.
Mantashe says his department is also doing research on the post-apartheid development of the sector to assess whether the previously disadvantaged are benefiting.
“What we think we will have to do is to do in the future is to commission a research on black capital formations post-independence because in South Africa, contribution of the state to capital formations is always categorised as crime and corruption but the reality of the matter is that any country that moves and get liberated the state has a responsibility to support and develop capital formation post-independence and in South Africa we have not done that very well.”
Illegal mining will also be investigated.
“If you look into that Stilfontein when there was about 1 500 plus people from Stilfontein only 21 were from South Africa, the rest were from the region and that confirms that some illegal activity that is actually dominated by neighboring countries and we see it as an attack on the economy and we don’t see it as an accident. We think it’s deliberate but the investigation by the security cluster must trace the actual brains and people who drive it from the back,” Mantashe adds.
And also, a word of caution to his Cabinet colleague, the Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie.
“I listened to Minister McKenzie yesterday, standing somewhere, saying the country is naked and so forth. I thought that was an overreach on his part because there is a department with a Minister of Home Affairs. To take a Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture to do monitoring on the border is actually an overreach and it can only be used for political gains, it has nothing with the safety or less safety of the country,” Mantashe laments.
And with the decline in gold exploration, the department says the platinum group metals will remain an alternative.
Video: Gwede Mantashe briefs media on critical minerals strategy bill
