JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – A radical overhaul of the State Diamond Trader was needed, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said on Thursday.

“We have to overhaul it and we have to be radical about it. We have to be ambitious in ensuring that it can serve the people of South Africa and the region as a whole,” Shabangu told Mining Weekly Online during question time at an SABC-televised New Age business breakfast on the Kimberley Process, which set out ten years ago to stop conflict diamonds from entering global markets.

The government created the State-owned diamond trader six years ago to allow historically disadvantaged South Africans to add value to 10% of the diamonds mined in the country.

However, it has come under criticism for failing to supply polishable rough diamonds to local producers at competitive prices.

The Minister reiterated that the review of the State Diamond Trader formed part of a review of the entire regulatory framework for the precious metals and diamond jewellery industries and its repositioning was linked to an envisaged State-enabled bourse that would incorporate a range of precious metals and minerals.

PIE IN THE SKY

On local minerals beneficiation in general, the Minister said, however, that the adding of value to South Africa’s metals and minerals locally would be unobtainable without the concomitant development of the relevant skills.

“Without skills, minerals beneficiation will remain pie in the sky,” Shabangu said, adding that skills development should also embrace entrepreneurship.

Value addition also needed to take into account the entire value chain from the source to the consumer.

The mindset of people being perpetual workers also had to be removed and young people entering minerals beneficiation needed to do so with an eye to owning their own businesses.

On the one hand beneficiation included large-scale and capital-intensive operations, such as smelting and refining, and on the other labour-intensive activities such as jewellery manufacture.

KIMBERLEY PROCESS

The meeting was told that 99.8% of all diamonds in the global value chain were currently channelled through the Kimberley Process, which had helped to stamp out the curse of conflict diamonds in countries such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The People’s Republic of China is taking over the chairpersonship of the Kimberley Process from South Africa in 2014 and South Africa has confirmed its support for Angola’s chairpersonship for 2015.