By Sharyn Macnamara
In part two of our series, junior and emerging miners share their experiences and call a ‘spade a spade’ at the Mazars and the African Mining, incorporating Mining Mirror publication round table discussion held last year.
L-R: Shaun Vorster partner, Bongiwe Mbunge, lead partner in ESG and Thinus de Vries partner at Mazars; Sharyn Macnamara of African Mining; Errol Smart, MD and CEO Orion Minerals and chair of Junior Exploration and Mining Leadership Forum and Grant Mitchell, head of Junior and Emerging Miners Desk at Minerals Council South Africa; Godfrey Mocwane, CEO at New Venture Mining Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd; Mantengu Group CEO, Mike Miller; Botlhale Seageng, Minerals Promotion Head at the DMRE and Mandy Malebe, CEO at Lethabo Exploration.
Errol Smart, MD and CEO Orion Minerals and chair of Junior Exploration and Mining Leadership Forum at the Minerals Council, chaired the discussion. Party to the discussions were Mandy Malebe, CEO at Lethabo Exploration; Godfrey Mocwane, CEO at New Venture Mining Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd; Botlhale Seageng, Minerals Promotion Head at the DMRE; Mantengu Group CEO, Mike Miller, Bongiwe Mbunge, lead partner in ESG Mazars and Grant Mitchell, head of Junior and Emerging Miners Desk at Minerals Council SA took part in the discussion.
Despite well-intended transformative policy in the form of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 and the Mining charter, according to the boots on the ground (and let’s face it, they are experiencing the symptomatic challenges first hand), there have been irregularities in the system and also a list of unintended consequences, caused by a “one-size fits all” mentality among other issues, which together impede growth in this explorative sector. Perhaps the most telling and blatant injustice in this story is the sad confusion in the industry – for some time now – as to what the actual definition of a junior/emerging miner is, not to mention the unfortunate neglect of this essential sector of the industry that represents the exploration drive of South Africa in that the last updated statistics describing this sector to the ‘powers that be’ are from 2003. “The last statistics, relied upon by National Treasury date back 20 years?!” stated Smart. In seeking to understand and support this sector of the industry in South Africa, the Minerals Council South Africa implemented an extensive research study2 which was concluded in 2019, the question is – perhaps it is time the DMRE sought to understand this sector more deeply?
Read the full article here