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Conference delegates vote for new Mineral Resources Minister

Picture credit: Trevor Samson.
Picture credit: Trevor Samson.

Delegates at a conference in Johannesburg have called for a new Mineral Resources Minister.

The delegates‚ who are from companies like Anglo American‚ Harmony Gold‚ Sibanye Gold‚ PWC and JP Morgan‚ KPMG and Standard Bank‚ cast their votes electronically ahead of the Joburg Indaba.

Among others‚ delegates were asked: The one thing you want the ANC-led government to do for mining?

Forty-one% called for a new minister‚ while 26.6% called for the scrapping of the Mining Charter. A further 4.1% called for the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Bill to be passed.

Other voting options included:

- Make industry pay for legacies

- Renegotiate the Charter

- Please love us!

The vote came amid a protracted standoff between Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane and mining companies over the Mining Charter‚ which the industry says threatens their survival.

Mkhize believed that new ways needed to be found to rebuild the mining industry by increasing the participation of black industrialists.

Quizzed by the media on delegates’ call for a new mining minister‚ he stressed that the chairman of the Indaba had already admitted that the majority of the participants were Democratic Alliance constituencies.

In order to move forward and ensure the growth of the economy‚ one of the issues that needed to be tackled was the issue of state capture‚ Mkhize said.

He said the ANC had hoped to have a commission of inquiry into state capture concluded before its elective conference in December but this had been delayed by legalities.

Mkhize said thousands of leaked Gupta e-mails have been informative and investigations into their contents will hopefully lead to police investigations.

“Those e-mails have come with a lot of revelations that we knew nothing about. If there is a proper judicial of inquiry‚ we can say South Africans can put the issue to rest‚” Mkhize said.

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