SA news

It opens the way for corruption and worsens the governance problems that led to the power crisis, the mining rights debacle and the failure of ports and ...

South Africa’s mineral potential, the primary channel through which economic growth could be kickstarted, is being throttled by a government that has shown itself unable to govern in the best interests of the citizens. ICT, part-owned by Khulubuse Zuma (yes, the nephew of the former thief-in-chief of the country), had submitted a fraudulent application but the Department of Mineral Resources took the case all the way to the constitutional court in defence of its decision to grant the right to ICT. Now we have a state of disaster presided over by the minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs; a new Minister of Electricity in the Presidency — a glorified project manager, apparently; the ministry of public enterprises and mineral resources and energy. Its relative economic muscle in the region and across the continent is a partial function of a sordid history of mineral extraction at the expense of most citizens. We can barely keep the smelters on, and even if we could, the freight rail and ports services are so dysfunctional that mining companies can barely get their goods to market. Major problem — going to court costs money and no timing requirements for the appeal process are written into the country’s minerals law. Eskom, the state-owned monopoly responsible for electricity production, transmission, and large parts of local distribution, is highly indebted (to the tune of about R400 billion, about a third of the entire country’s annual budget). During the indaba, he had told the private sector to stop moaning and get on board with helping to address the country’s problems. In other, perhaps equally disturbing cases, the state employs its security apparatus to appropriate resources and forms joint ventures with unscrupulous entities to sell those resources on global markets. There are massive risks and opportunities for mineral-wealthy African countries but, at this stage, the risks appear to be outweighing the potential benefits. Moreover, any hope of a “green transition” depends deeply on mining the minerals and metals required to feed electric vehicle, wind turbine and solar panel production. Cobalt, copper, lithium, platinum group metals, titanium, chrome and manganese supply must expand if the global demand for clean technology is to be met.