- Note: The following news report is an indication of a
subtle move to undermine the existing mining industry in South Africa and
to nationalise it in the name of Black Empowerment. Investors overseas
in the USA have already panicked somewhat and see this move for what it
is - Government slowly moving in on South African mines in the same way
that Mugabe is taking over the agricultural industry in Zimbabwe. Mbeki
may be telling people not to worry, but investors have recognised this
for what it is. --Jan
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- The Daily Mail & Guardian (SA)
9-2-2
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- (SAPA) -- Once South Africans agree that there is an
urgent need to transform their society, and in particular the mining industry,
it will become easier to negotiate the ways towards that common goal, President
Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday.
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- Referring to talks between government and business on
a new mining charter, he said it must become evident that access to resources,
wealth and other opportunities could not continue to mirror the divisions
and distortions of the past.
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- South Africa could not avoid debate around mining issues.
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- The President was speaking at a Business Trust dinner
in Johannesburg attended by representatives of local and international
big business, who have been meeting in the city on the fringes of the World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
-
- Mbeki said as had happened in the past, there would be
intense and rigorous engagements on the charter so that the views of all
South Africans were brought on board before any final decisions were taken.
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- "I am confident that the majority of us cannot sleep
well when we know that we have consciously worked against the empowerment
of those who cannot fully participate in the economy, because the past
had, by design, consigned them to the margins of society."
-
- Both industry and business should at all times listen
to the poor and marginalised and work for the implementation of programmes
that advance their interests, he said.
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- Leaders from the mining industry, labour and government
have been meeting to finalise a charter for the sector, following the approval
by Parliament earlier this year of the Minerals and Petroleum Resources
Development Bill.
-
- The bill, which the President has yet to sign into law,
aims to facilitate the entrance of black emerging miners into the industry.
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- Mbeki said the debate on the charter represented the
vibrancy of the country's efforts to build a new democratic, non-racial,
stable and prosperous society.
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- Unfortunately, elsewhere in the world the response to
this debate was exactly the opposite, he said.
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- Mining stocks took a pounding after a draft charter,
detailing government's proposals for empowerment, was leaked to the media.
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- The document had proposed that 51% of new mining operations
be black-owned within ten years.
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- Mbeki said the response of the markets to the draft charter
was the price South Africa had to pay "for the privilege, or curse,
of living in exciting times".
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- "What the international response confirmed was that
government and business had a common obligation to inform the world about
their shared objectives and their responsibility to present and future
generations to create a new South Africa," he said.
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- http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.jsp?a=12&o=8393
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