LETTER: Ramaphosa’s indaba address mined nothing new
The president may have made the right noises, but his promises of policy certainty rang hollow
Two articles arising from the Mining Indaba beg a response. Lisa Steyn’s report, “Ramaphosa’s Stirring Speech Hits the Right Notes at Mining Indaba, but Will he Match it with Follow-through?” (February 5) on the president’s address to the conference bubbles with misplaced enthusiasm. That he made the right noises was unremarkable — former president Jacob Zuma often did so. Whether this means anything substantive is less certain. Promises of regulatory certainty, for example, are nothing new. SA has been lethargically “working towards” this goal for years. And though it is positive that some agreement has been reached on the Mining Charter, is this policy’s destination or merely a waypoint? Does more “uncertainty” await the industry with a revised and more onerous iteration a few years from now? And on expropriation without compensation, Steyn confirms Ramaphosa offered essentially nothing. Pledging that the policy would enhance property rights seems distinctly counterintuitive when ...
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