SA, once the top gold producer in the world, is firmly among the also-rans, ranked among the least attractive places in the world for mining investment.

From being the backbone of SA’s industrialisation in the 20th century and employing about 760,000 people at its peak in the 1980s, the sector’s decline was laid bare in a report showing that SA now ranks a lowly 75 out of the 84 jurisdictions judged on attractiveness to mining investment. The finding in the Fraser Institute’s Annual Survey of Mining Companies doesn’t bode well for efforts by President Cyril Ramaphosa to entice investors to an economy that’s struggling with an unemployment rate of more than 35%...