JOHANNESBURG, July 14 (ANA) – The Democratic Alliance (DA) has welcomed the suspension of the controversial Mining Charter pending the outcome of the Chamber of Mine’s urgent interdict.
This comes after Mineral Resources Minister, Mosebenzi Zwane, gave a written undertaking that his department will not implement or apply the provisions of the 2017 Reviewed Mining Charter in any way, pending judgement in an urgent interdict brought by the Chamber of Mines.
Zwane has furthermore undertaken that, in the event of any breach of the his undertaking, the Chamber can set the urgent interdict application down for hearing on 48 hours’ notice to him.
The Reviewed Mining Charter has been vehemently rejected by the industry, with the Chamber saying that the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) had not had meaningful consultations before the introduction of some of the items, and thus it would approach the courts to stop the department from implementing it.
The Reviewed Charter’s targets include new mining rights holders having 30 percent black ownership to be shared among employees, communities and black entrepreneurs. Mining rights holders who have complied with the previous target of 26 percent have to “top up” to 30 percent within 12 months.
DA spokesperson on finance, Alf Lees, said the release of the latest version of the Chatter caused an “astounding R50 billion” market value loss in mining shares, in just one fell swoop.
“It must said that the DA supports share schemes for miners when they are structured to benefit the workers and are economically viable,” Lees said in a statement.
“However, the Mining Charter was not designed to benefit miners but instead to make cronies and insiders richer, as they open up new opportunities to get in on mining deals.”
Based on the written undertaking, the Chamber of Mines has acceded to the Department of Mineral Resource’s request for extra time to prepare its answering affidavit to the interdict application and for the hearing to take place on a later date. The hearing was scheduled for Tuesday, July 18.
The parties have also asked the deputy judge president of the High Court to allocate a hearing date in September 2017. This date is subject to allocation by the deputy judge president, which is expected to occur by around the end of July.
Lees said government would do well to take this opportunity to review the Charter and to present an effective plan that would attract investment, create jobs and benefit the country’s people, not just the connected few.
– African News Agency (ANA)
