Chairperson, mining in South Africa contributes less than 6% to the gross domestic product and it contributes less than R25 billion to the national fiscus. We as the EFF think that this cannot be true, because we are supposed to be the greatest mining nation and mining territory in the world in terms of PGMs and a variety of critical mineral resources.
We pointed out to the portfolio committee that there are real occurrences and practices of transfer pricing. The Department of Mineral Resources is not focusing on that. What happens is that the mining companies create subsidiary companies in other parts of the world and sell the goods and services at a lower price so that they pay lower taxes than is required. This is a real issue, one that is not a challenge for South Africa only, but also for all resource-producing countries. We think that there must be a clear focus on the issues of transfer pricing and base erosion.
The practical programme that the Department of Mineral Resources must look into is transferring the African Mining and Finance Corporation, which is a state-owned corporation under the Department of Energy, to itself so that it could start to extract platinum, beneficiate and industrialise it. The reality of the situation is that, as things stand, platinum is not for sale in South Africa. Even if you have a Mineral Beneficiation Strategy, platinum is not for sale in South Africa.
The state could build capacity that it could use to extract platinum group metals and beneficiate and industrialise them locally. That would add value to the economy and create additional jobs, which you have been failing to do for the past 20 years. Those are the basic, logical things that must be considered in moving forward.