Hon
Chairperson, the Minister of mineral resources and energy; Mr Samson Gwede Mantashe, the Chairperson and the members of the portfolio committee on mineral resources and energy, hon members, invited guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It is an honor to address this House on this budget vote as a deputy minister responsible for mineral resources and energy. This happens during the month of July, which is the month where the former president of South Africa, comrade Nelson Mandela was born. It also happens that today, 10 July is comrade Solomon Kalushka Mahlangu's birthday. They share a common factor, which is their participation in the struggle for the liberation of our people. Part of the struggle includes the fight for access to
mineral resources, both economically and as a source of job creation.
The house has been taken through the seven priorities by the minister. Five of those priorities speak directly to the department of mineral resources and energy. As it was indicated, there are two budget votes; however, today we shall focus on mineral resources. For us to be the leading mining hub in the country and in the world, we will have to do extraordinary activities. That includes transforming our licensing system through the use technology. This will assist in ensuring that we get a better value turnaround and a bit of fast tracking on our licensing system.
We will also need to explore a bit more in order to ensure that all minerals are mined. When we do that, we need to ensure that all stakeholders are aligned. Furthermore, this department needs to ensure that mining health and safety is improved and that all parties involved, including the private sector and workers, are committed to sending our workers home alive Moreover, we need to ensure that we intensify the mining of those minerals that are
not so famous, like shale, vanadium, cobalt, titanium and many others.
This department listened very well when the president of the country cited mining as one of the arrears that has potential for growth and job creation, during Sona. You may know that South Africa has formalized mining, at least for the past 120 years, mining about 50 different commodities. With all the issues at hand, there is still potential for investors in the mining sector of this country, which will also create jobs.
In contrast to all of this, there has been news and indications that gold mining has been decreasing. This is due to the fact that it has been mined for so long. Mining in its nature is about depletion. Once one starts mining, the amount and the value that you would have had underground gets depleted. That being said, there is a job decline at the level of gold mining, however, the other areas in the industry are growing and that is important.
Amongst other focus arrears, we would like to alert parliament that we are going to continue to mine coal. We will explore and mine coal. We understand that we will have to strike a balance between the use of coal as a source of energy with safety and cleanliness of coal. There is technology that is available to ensure that coal is cleaned and can be used as a source of energy.
We will also have to explore on gas, including the infamous shell gas. Yes, this will require that we work with the department of environmental affairs, and we are going to do exactly that. This is to ensure that it is used as a source of energy but also, as you may know, it's also used as a pit stop for producing cleaner petroleum products.
We will also focus on ensuring that minerals like, titanium, which is used in the aerospace industry, because of its lightness and strength is further focused on. The International Seabed Authority is doing a lot of work in the west cost side, in terms of mining of manganese with the deposits that are there. Manganese will be used as a catalyst, rubber additive and
to decolourant and as a fertilizer. As South Africa, we intend to increase our share in that particular mining, from 1% to about 5%.
We are also going to ensure that, in all these exercises, those who were previously marginalized are able to participate in mining. Allow me to pass through the famous mining charter, which I have realized that it is a centre of dispute in this August House. If we were to mine without a policy in position, to ensure the inclusion of black people and all other previously marginalized groups, it would be a futile exercise because it would mean that we are coping and pasting from the apartheid system.
Yes, 30% black ownership is demanded by the mining charter. We want to see to it, at the level of monitoring, from the licensing to implementation, that it happens. We must also indicate that, it has also started speaking of the issue of the involvement of women in the ownership. However, there is still a gap. The gap is that there is no mention of young people in the charter, regarding ownership. It only speaks of them with
regards to procurement. Therefore, at some point, very soon, a discussion to review that mining charter will be relevant.
We wish to bring to the attention of this House, our proactive engagements that we plan to have with different communities with regards to mining. We understand that as part of licensing, our communities must agree and be in line with what needs to happen. Therefore, we intend to educate them about mining, its value and to assist them to conclude on whether they want to continue with mining or not.
We will invite all interested parties to go with us to eXholobeni for a discussion with that community. We will focus on two cases, the case of tourism as a sector that has potential and a case of mining of titanium oxide that is in the shores of that area. The communities need to be given all necessary information in order for them to be able to make a determination on whether they want to continue to mine or if they want to work both the industries concurrently.
There are other aspects in the area of licensing, like the issue in Harding, where people in that area believe that they have gold but scientific studies prove otherwise. Engagements with those communities need to improve so as to ensure that our people have an understanding of what is going on. The same applies in the case of the Karoo. As indicated by the minister earlier, we will pay more attention to engagements with communities across the country because their input is crucial for the growth and transformation of the sector.
The discussions around social labor plans are part of the major discussions within the department because we feel that there needs to be an improvement on the quality but also on implementation. and monitoring and evaluation thereof. We will work very hard to ensure that this exercise is attended to. On the discussion of beneficiation, the minister has covered it well, but we take into recognition, that, a need to re-look at the structuring of the electricity price and other utilities is going to be very central in attracting investors to ensure that this particular exercise is done much better and there are more activities.
Allow me to vent a bit on youth related matters. We need to strike a balance between the knowledge of the old guard and innovation of young people in the sector, particularly to ensure that there is advancement and there is transformation. Young people in this country can assist in placing this country on a sustainable growth path by supporting industrialization through involvement. The fourth industrial revolution will always be very difficult for old guards to comprehend but young people bring that ability and agility to be able to bring advance technology into the industry.
It will remain important to not only involve young people on procurement as per the mining charter but to also involve them in ownership. Since the mining charter is silent, we encourage young people to form community groups and be entrepreneurs and approach the department in order to be part of the exercise of licensing.
The youth, women and people with disabilities, need to find expression in this sector. Especially, people with disabilities. It's very rare to find them participate in this industry. This
is simply because within this industry, are restrictions of safety and there has not been an effort put forward to ensure that the places of work are accessible for them. Allow me to vent beck into history, women in this sector have been excluded both by law and legislation. The introduction of the mining charter has tried to include women in terms of the work force but we want to say that the amount of women, particularly young women who are participating in ownership still remains very low.
The issue of liability, where we had to take over as the country, in terms of ownerless and derelinked mines, it's huge, it's sitting at about 49 billion. This then cultivates the environment for illegal mining and many other unsafe activities within the openings that used to be mines. There is a difference between illegal mining and small scale mining. When a person mines without a license, that is illegal and they must be treated as criminals.
We are going to open licensing of small scale mining but we are not going to encourage that people come and mine illegally. In fact we will ensure that the SAPS are part and parcel of that
particular exercise. There is an issue of ex-miners and current miners that have been suffering from tuberculosis and silicosis due to gold mining. There is a project already that we are working on with the department of health to ensure that those people are properly compensated. We can assure this August House that we will ensure that they are fast tracked and that the process is smooth. We will take it into our own hands.
Mining remains a contested terrain in the country. Between black and white people, the haves and the have nots, it is clear that when you try and introduce any form of transformation agenda you will always be met with resistance but the department is ready to transform this industry. We will work with those that are willing to work with us.
As I conclude allow me to thank the department which is the team DMRE, the minister, the committee that has been supporting us for the past five weeks as we were putting together the work and planning for the year ahead. Thank you very much.