Every Friday morning, SAfm's AMLive's radio anchor Caesar Molebatsi speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday's At the Coalface transcript:

Molebatsi: We see that South Africa's new State mining company has developed its first mine.

Creamer: Yes, the cat is out of the bag. It's a coal mine known as Vlakfontein, 100 km east of Johannesburg. It was supposed to be officially opened this week by our President Jacob Zuma, but the opening has been postponed and new date will be given to us by the organisers who are, of course, the State-owned Enterprise, which is African Exploration Mining and Finance Company, a long winded name, but it falls under the Central Energy Fund.

You can see that it is hunting energy assets. Not only has it got this mining licence, which we heard about earlier in Parliament, but now we see it actually happening with a built mine that will be operated by the State, but we also see it looking for uranium.

So it seems to be in the energy space, it falls under the CEF, which is the Central Energy Fund and this is its first operation. It will be interesting to see whether it does compete on a level pegging field with private enterprises, because that is what the private sector is worried about - is this mine going to get special advantage? Is this going to be equal before the law? If its equal before the law, that's fine. If it has special privileges, they won't be happy.

Molebatsi: What about the management of this mine, are they going to actually have some level of independence, so that they can actually be seen not as just government lackeys but real people who know the business?

Creamer: I think when you see the CEF and the way it deals with PetroSA that is an independent operation, statuary body, of course.

Eskom is a utility, also State-owned, but operates with private sector principles and commercial principles. We will expect the same from African Exploration Mining and Finance.

Molebatsi: Thank you very much. Now you are saying that mentoring is seen as vital to bridge South Africa's gaping engineer shortage.

Creamer: They say we have only got half the engineers that we need and, of course, those that are coming through come through from a lesser educational foundation. So people are looking at mentoring and you now hear of mentees, which are people who are mentored.

Even some consulting engineering firms are putting a lot of store on this, because you see that at the Consulting Engineering South Africa, when they have their excellence awards, a lot of people are getting awards for Mentor of the Year.

Some consulting engineering firms even start at school level where they attract people with what they call Saturday schools, with tuition in maths, science, engineering drawing. Once these people then graduate as engineers, they offer them mentorship.

A lot of young people coming out of university say that they would like to go to that consulting engineer firm, because you get mentored. There is a different work ethic, a new generation work ethic, where people think differently, and if you offer them that mentorship, which is rooted in mutual respect between the mentor and the mentee, they go for that.

Molebatsi: Limpopo province is embarking on a grass-growing initiative to stop rampant soil erosion.

Creamer: Soil erosion the world over is a problem and we now have the `International Erosion Control Association is active with the Southern Africa Chapter. They have linked up with the Limpopo province and said that they have got over-grazing, drought situations and a lot of soil erosion and that they must move in with this new miracle grass, Vetiver grass, which is used elsewhere in the world, in 120 countries.

It is fantastic because it is unpalatable to cattle and also the soil retention lifts by about 90% when you grow this Vetiver and also less rain flows away. So, it is a fantastic way of restoring eroded areas and we see that this particular association, the Erosion Control Association, they've already got sites for nurseries.

This particular grass is used as a hedge-type of growing and it goes deep into the earth, I think the roots go down about 5 metres and the grass grows about 2 metres high, so it forms quite a nice barrier.

This issue of soil erosion is something that we have got to tackle and it is good to see the Limpopo Department of Agriculture tieing up with this association.

Molebatsi: Martin, let me just say this to our listeners, because most of you who listen to At the Coalface, don't realise that what Martin actually shares with us on weekly basis is that tip of the iceberg in terms of this man across the table from me actually represents.

And there are publications that I read very faithfully on a weekly basis, Engineering News, and hopefully people will really pick this up, because a lot of people don't know they go into engineering, because they just don't have information.

So really, At the Coalface, is just a teaser to you to say there is more. Get out there, get the magazine and I know South Africa will gain thereby.

Molebatsi: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he'll be back with us at the same time next week.