Outlining its objectives, the new, reviewed Mining Charter describes itself as "a government instrument designed to achieve mutually symbiotic sustainable growth and broad-based and meaningful transformation of the mining and minerals industry". It is a revealing clause — not because of the sustainable growth and broad-based transformation goals, which few would quarrel with, but because it situates the charter so explicitly as one imposed by the government on the industry. That reflects a process that was fundamentally different from the one adopted in crafting the final version of the first charter, which was signed in October 2002 and took effect in May 2004, as well as the second, amended charter signed in 2014. In its language and its content, the third Mining Charter could hardly be more different from that first, "pathfinding" charter, as those involved in crafting it like to describe it. But the contrasts between "MC1" and this latest "MC3" highlight how far the transformati...
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