JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Changes to the draft framework agreement on sustainable mining in South Africa, arrived at under the auspices of Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, are due in today.

The Deputy Presidential spokesperson Thabo Masebe said a small team would deal with any changes submitted.

That would then be followed by a signing ceremony, which would probably take place next week.

The June 26 ratification deadline was set on June 14, after the who’s who of South African mining met to draw attention to the urgent need for the rule of law and for peace and stability to return to South Africa’s troubled mining sector.

June 26 also marks the start of the arbitration between platinum union majoritarian, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), and South Africa’s third-largest platinum producer, the London- and Johannesburg-listed Lonmin, which will be conducted at the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, where it is hoped a strike-averting agreement will be reached.

The Deputy President told AMLive anchor Xolani Gwala during a SAfm national radio debate last Friday that AMCU and Lonmin had found a meeting point that would forestall a strike, but AMCU treasurer Jimmy Gama later responded to Mining Weekly Online in a far less sanguine text message, which read: "No common ground has been reached with Lonmin. The strike is still pending.”

AMCU is now said to represent 70% of Lonmin’s 28 000 mineworkers, having wrested majority membership from the once-dominant National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

Against the background of the so-called turf war between AMCU and NUM, government, organised labour and business have undertaken to meet quarterly over the next 12 months, or as frequently as required, under the leadership of the Deputy President, to ensure common action to address blockages and to deal with new issues should these arise.

AMCU was present at the meeting where all parties recognised the mining industry's centrality to South Africa’s economy and job creation, as well as the need to strengthen the sector in the current difficult global economic conditions.

In the interim, the attendees agreed broadly that it is crucial to ensure law and order and to end violence and conflict.

There was also broad consensus on the need for the industry to be repositioned to become attractive to investors and to contribute more meaningfully to job creation.

The who’s who present agreed to respond to the immediate poor economic situation in mining and identify long-term policy measures, including creating certainty in sector regulations and tax policy and accelerating the implementation of human settlement intervention to ensure that there is proper mineworker housing.

Motlanthe said that government would ensure that the legislative and regulatory programmes provided predictability and certainty for the mining industry.

Masebe assured Mining Weekly Online that the media would be invited to the formal signing ceremony that would mark the ratification of the draft agreement.