PARLIAMENT’s mineral resources committee has decided that President Jacob Zuma had no grounds for concern over the constitutionality of the Mineral Petroleum and Resources Development Amendment (MPRDA) Bill.The committee on Wednesday reaffirmed the disputed contents of the bill, in the form it was originally passed by Parliament in 2014.The president referred the bill back to Parliament in January 2015 on both procedural and substantive grounds. Parliament is in the process of addressing the procedural flaws in the original passage of the bill through the legislature, but the committee has decided that, on the basis of advice from the state and parliamentary law advisers, the original bill is sound on the substantive issues.These related to the compliance of the bill with international trade agreements and the inclusion of the mining charter in its definition of the act.Zuma had raised concern that the sections of the bill dealing with beneficiation were inconsistent with SA’s oblig...
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