MINING CHARTER
KHAYA SITHOLE: Mining Charter’s black economic empowerment clause spotlights financing pitfalls
Few things in SA represent the intersection between history, politics and economics better than the minerals industry. A new draft of the Mining Charter was released for public comment by Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe last week, following 2017’s disastrous attempt by his predecessor, Mosebenzi Zwane. The broad consensus was that the Zwane version failed to live up to the expectations of any stakeholders — other than certain individuals who obtained citizenship by naturalisation after 1994. This resulted in paralysis in the industry — investment stalled and lawsuits ensued as the question of perpetual empowerment remained a point of departure, with the mining houses insisting that the principle of once empowered, always empowered must apply. Given the low level of substantive empowerment in the industry, the Zwane charter disputed that principle and insisted that expired deals had to be topped up.The empowerment threshold also shifted from 26% to 30% in the 2017 version. ...
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