Speech by James Lorimer MP, DA Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources in the debate on the President's State of the Nation Address, Parliament, June 18 2014:

Mining: Jobs hit rock bottom under Zuma

I was disappointed to see reports in the media after a recent meeting of the ANC's National Executive committee that recommitted the government to increased state intervention in the mining sector.

Since that SIMS document emerged monstrously from the statist crypt, we've had continued state expenditure in the 3 state-owned mining companies that we know of;  we've had a sector that continues to reel under the assault of bad regulation conducted badly which disincentivises investment. 

We've had the unfortunate conjunction of that bad regulation with the utter failure of state labour and local government policy that resulted in the Marikana shootings. To cap it all, there's the new mining law the MPRDA bill which was rushed through in the dying hours of the Fourth parliament.

The SIMS report talks grandiosely of the creation of between 400 thousand and a million jobs within two years of the plan being adopted, and we are now two years since that policy was adopted.

So how's that working out?

Our undemocratic, labour dispensation has led to a platinum strike which has seen mining as measured by Stats SA go down by almost a quarter, that's the biggest drop in 47 years. We've seen miners on the platinum belt lost more than R10 billion in wages; I'm told 128 businesses in Rustenburg have closed their doors. It's not just the strike that's to blame. The new look MPRDA was a damaging and irresponsible piece of legislation that, by our count, may be unconstitutional for up to 8 different reasons.

It will certainly cost jobs. It has resulted in, if not the death of our exciting new oil and gas industry, then the placing of that industry in intensive care. One oil company announced publically it was redirecting what's believed to be tens of millions of rands in exploration expenditure from South Africa this year to other countries because the MPRDA effectively allows for nationalisation. 

Even drillers for shale gas, which the Honourable President described in glowing terms last night, are nervous and wondering whether it is worthwhile committing any money to South Africa. The only reason those companies are still around is they're either already committed money or they are still hoping somebody, somewhere in government will show sense and scrap the MPRDA Amendment Bill.

We heard last night about plans to talk to business, as if this will magically make a difference. Oil and gas drillers talked extensively to this government over the MPRDA, but government did not listen. Unless government's attitude changes, nothing else will.

What this government has to realise is that its decisions have consequences. And it should not just be engaged upon finding ways to divert more of the people's money, via the state, to the pockets of comrades, cronies and cousins. 

This government has a duty to the people of South Africa, in whose interests it serves. It owes a duty to people like the wife of a platinum miner who believes her husband will lose his livelihood when mines close shafts because of the platinum strike.

It has a duty to young South Africans looking for a job who will not find one because investors choose not to invest because of bad regulation.

It has a duty to the people who used to work at those 128 Rustenburg businesses that closed their doors. Each one had employees and owners, each one of them had hopes plans and dreams which have been shattered because this government set up a labour system that benefitted its political allies and cronies in COSATU but at the cost of democracy and free decision making in labour. 

Mining is not a game that can be played by the political elite for their own enrichment.

So many of our people stand to keep or get jobs if our mining and oil and gas sectors are allowed to grow.  

But they will not, until there is money to grow them. That money can only come from government, which doesn't have it, or from investors who will not risk their own money while government seems intent on taking it away from them.

The philosophy espoused in the SIMS document is a dead end. 

Every time this government talks about greater state involvement in the economy I think of public hospitals, public schools and the Department of Human Settlements. The state runs all three and the services delivered are generally appalling. Anybody who can afford to have nothing to do with any of those state-run organisations will go elsewhere. Certainly people in this House do. If there's more state involvement, that is what will happen in mining too.

But SIMS is not the only plan the government has in its arsenal. It also has the National Development Plan, which, does offer another path. It is the path of growth. Growth from a labour regime that is properly democratic and balanced between the needs of job creators and workers; Growth brought about by clear legislation, that provides incentives that will bring the money for development that we need. That means jobs, that means the people, all the people, will share in our country's mineral wealth rather than just the connected few.

Issued by the DA, June 19 2014

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