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On-The-Air (15/08/2014)

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15th August 2014

By: Creamer Media Reporter

  

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AMLive anchor Sakina Kamwendo on Friday presented another Update From The Coalface with Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.


Kamwendo: Now AMCU is knocking on the recognition door at the only major platinum mine to escape the five- month platinum strike.

Creamer: Northam platinum escaped the five-month platinum strike at Zondereinde mine, but it gave notice yesterday when it presented its results that AMCU is now knocking on the recognition door. In fact, AMCU only needs 1% to get recognition, obviously you’ve got to verify, but it’s got 14 % of the membership at the Zondereinde mine now. That was always a National Union of Mineworkers stronghold, but the irony of the situation is that NUM is also not very happy at the moment, although they had an 11.5- week strike that ended on January 29.

They did give notice when there was a change of leadership at Zondereinde that didn’t meet their fancy, that they would be embarking on a baptism of fire on the new leader, who is Paul Dunne, who actually said yesterday that if another strike hits the industry at the moment, it’s going to be very bad.  One almost got the feeling that he had his ear to the ground and he’s hearing the sounds of a possible unrest coming up, so one hopes that won’t be the case, but because of less dependence of Northam now, which is the 4th biggest is moving away from a one mine situation, they have got another mine out at Booysendal, that is going to be a mechanised mine. They’ve had the Australians there helping with the mechanisation, but that operation is still loss-making at this stage. Also, we find that Northam is lacking when it comes to BEE credentials at the moment, even though the deadline is there, they don’t have a big ownership partner.  They also confessed that their housing is in shortfall when measured up against the Mining Charter. 


Kamwendo: Labour unions are embracing mechanisation at the new Styldrift platinum project.

Creamer: We’ve got this new Styldrift platinum project coming through that is the Royal Bafokeng Platinum and their unions have embraced this whole idea of mechanisation, so, it’s an interesting scene when you bring the unions into your confidence, you show them the business plan, you give them the modus operandi and explain why you are mechanising, because your ore-body allows you to mechanise, you get buy-in. In this case, there’s buy-in at Styldrift.  Originally there was going to be 3 000 employees on this new project, because of the optimisation, and the talks with both the National Union of Mineworkers and UASA, that has now been bumped up by another 1 000.  So there are going to be 4 000 people, a high-powered operation. 

The leader there, Steve Phiri of Royal Bafokeng Platinum, confesses that he thinks Ubunthu is behind his successful relations with the unions and he talks of even going to the hostels to make sure everything is up to speed there.  He visits them frequently and he also has meals there. Of course, his hostel situation is small at the moment, because he’s got such a big housing programme. I think he’s only got about 300 people in the hostel situation.

Kamwendo: A State-led Operation Hurry Up is on the way for South Africa’s badly lagging mining industry. 

Creamer: Anything with “Hurry Up” in mining, I’m very happy about and at the Lekgotla gala dinner, the Minister in the Presidency, Jeff Radebe, delivered a very forceful speech and let the cat out of the bag that there is now a State-led operation “Hurry Up” on the way for South Africa’s badly lagging mining industry, of course when we say Hurry Up it’s really called Phakisa, and we’ve seen Phakisa in the ocean economy where that was the first Phakisa where they’re trying to make sure we get the most out of our ocean economy, so they set a programme for this.  He let it be known at this gala dinner that he’s also got a shorter and a more hurried Phakisa horison for mining.  What happens with Phakisa is that you look at the industry and say, “is it performing to speed?” 

They find that it’s not performing the way it should, it’s not contributing to the gross domestic product and then you set targets for how it can reach its full potential and then you monitor those very rigorously and this is the project Hurry Up that’s being led by the State for the mining sector and it couldn’t come too soon and it comes against the background of a lot of initiatives in mining.  We’ve had the framework agreement, we’ve had the medium term strategic framework, we’ve also had the mining charter, we’ve had the MPRDA, which has still got to be signed by the President, that’s the legislation, and the National Development Plan.  We’ve also got operation Hurry Up, well, of course the timeframe is extremely important and also getting the most out of mining is extremely important, because we know it’s really punching way below its weight and it should be contributing far more to the GDP, delivering far more jobs.

This particular programme has been very successful in Malaysia, for instance, where they’ve had similar programmes that they’re basing this project Phakisa on. Now we’re seeing it here, and it’s also coming against the background of this week’s medium term strategic framework saying that you’ve got to unlock certain things in mining and one of the things they spoke about is tax, fair tax with incentives, and also infrastructure and security of title and all those issues coming up in the Mining Lekgotla, where we saw once and for all that South Africa is the best mining address.  We’ve got the fantastic assets here.  We need to then acknowledge our past, but start moving forward collectively, and there was that spirit there, there was that determination to make sure that it’s not another talk shop, because it’s the third one, but it’s the foundation for a new industry building and wealth creation for the benefit of all South Africans.


Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly. He’ll be back At The Coalface at the same time next Friday.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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