SOUTH Africa has completed a review of its mining charter and will engage the industry in further discussions before coming up with a final document, Mines Minister Susan Shabangu said.

SOUTH Africa has completed a review of its mining charter and will engage the industry in further discussions before coming up with a final document, Mines Minister Susan Shabangu said.

"We have completed the review of the mining charter.

"We will be forwarding our observations as a department to the Chamber of Mines, and we believe you (Chamber) will have an important role to play in the final conclusion of the charter," Shabangu said yesterday.

Upon taking charge of the mining department, Shabangu said her first task would be to oversee the first major review of the mining charter, a five-year-old agreement meant to bring more black ownership in mining, reversing decades of exclusion under white apartheid rule.

The review was meant to find out whether the Black Economic Empowerment drive was succeeding or if it needed improvement, and also to find out how mining companies had fared in terms of their social responsibilities to communities. - Reuters