Africa must “assert its advantage” in order to benefit from the booming demand for industrially valuable minerals in which the continent is abundantly rich.
This according to Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe, who delivered the keynote address at the 31st Investing in Africa Mining Indaba, currently underway at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
“[There] is evidence that the African continent hosts significant reserves of industrially important minerals, such as manganese, copper, coal, nickel, cobalt, titanium, vanadium, lithium and rare earth minerals.
“With the growing demand for these minerals, Africa needs to assert its advantage and take charge of the growing demand,” Mantashe said.
He insisted that with all the mineral endowments that Africa possess, it should take the opportunity to grow to become one of the most developed continents.
“The truth of the matter is that Africa is the world’s richest mining jurisdiction, possessing at least 90% of the world’s chromium and platinum, 40% of the world’s gold, and the largest reserves of the world’s cobalt, vanadium, manganese and uranium.
“Despite having these abundant mineral resources, Africa remains poor and this must change.
“There is no other point in time that will be more opportune for Africa to take control of its development, while still pursuing our strategic partnerships with the rest of the world,” Mantashe said.
Local perspective
Turning to South Africa, Mantashe noted that while the country holds 37% of the world’s manganese ore reserves, only 2% is processed locally.
This, he added, is being looked into by government.
“In [recognition] of this reality and the fact that a lot of value is derived in the processing of these resources, we will this year intensify our engagements with the manganese producers and investors to invest in local beneficiation and thereby add value to these minerals.
“We are mindful that for local beneficiation to succeed, we need to guarantee consistent, reliable, and affordable electricity supply. Despite the recent setback, I can assure you that now that we have reached over nine months with no electricity interruptions, government is working on measures to reduce administered prices and in so doing, reduce the cost of doing business in South Africa,” he said.
Mantashe outlined government’s plans to turn South Africa into an exploration hub.
“We are… alive to the fact that there can be no mining or beneficiation without exploration; hence, our steadfastness to reignite exploration investment and in so doing, turn South Africa into an exploration site.
“Our efforts in this regard are beginning to take shape, as evidenced by progress made since we launched the country’s exploration fund during the last mining indaba.
“We are buoyed by the fact that of the eight beneficiaries to receive funding from the first funding call, at least three of the projects are 100% black-female-owned, whereas all other beneficiaries are more than 50% black-owned,” he said.
Furthermore, some 20 projects are expected to receive funding to the tune of R67 million as part of government’s artisanal and small-scale mining fund.
Mining licensing
The Minister assured investors and mining companies that South Africa’s commitment to putting in place a new mining licensing system is well underway.
“The department and the PMG Consortium are currently finalising the design and configuration phase which is at the heart of the new system. This phase covers all aspects of mining regulations value chain including, inter alia, the client management functionality, rights application submission and processing, and the rights application tracking functionality
“This phase of the project is anticipated to be completed in the next few weeks, and will, thereafter, be followed by the testing and deployment of the new system into the department’s ICT system,” he said.
While that work is underway, the backlog in prospecting and mining applications is also being attended to, with at least 114 mining rights, 982 prospecting rights, and 385 mining permits and ancillaries processed and finalised.
On the international stage and with South Africa being the first African country to hold the Group of 20 (G20) Presidency, Mantashe had this to say to African countries: “With this being the very first time that an African economy leads the G20 for a full one-year term, let us leverage on this opportunity to shape a new era of the African mining industry that meaningfully contributes to the socioeconomic development of our continent, and in building the Africa we want.”
