STATEMENT BY MINERAL RESOURCES MINISTER MR GWEDE MANTASHE, ON POLICY AND REGULATORY MATTERS
Mining Charter
On Friday 15th June 2018, we published the draft Mining Charter for public comments. This comes after a process of eight weeks of intensive engagements with stakeholders and social partners.
We started our engagements in March at a meeting with social partners. We then embarked on an intensive consultation with mining communities and organisations across the country. We visited mining communities in all nine provinces: Emalahleni in Mpumalanga, Lephalale and Burgersfort in Limpopo, Kathu in the Northern Cape, Saldhana in the Western Cape, Klerksdorp and Rustenburg in the North West, King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape, Carletonville in Gauteng, Welkom in the Free State and Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal. We are encouraged by the positive contributions, verbal and written, that all communities and the public made. They were invaluable in guiding the process of drafting the Charter.
In two weeks from now, we will host a Summit to receive further inputs from stakeholders, as we work towards finalising the Charter. The period to receive public comments closes on 27th July 2018.
Once we have a finalised draft it will be subjected to Government’s Socio-Economic Impact Assessment System (SEIAS) to assess the likely impact of the Charter on the economy and society in general. It will then be submitted to Cabinet for approval. Once all these processes have been completed, the final Mining Charter will be gazetted for implementation.