A new Bill is to be presented to the South African Parliament to strengthen the State’s role in the industry, currently dogged by legislative, regulatory and administrative tensions between government, business and labour.

The Mining Company of South Africa Bill will be presented to Cabinet and Parliament during the year, President Jacob Zuma announced in his State of the Nation address, in which he acknowledged mining’s role as being the backbone of the South African economy and an important foreign exchange earner.

The President referred to the commodity price recovery, which he welcomed as a driver of greater mining output, which Statistics South Africa last week said would likely be 5% lower in 2016 than in the previous year.

He spoke of the Mining Charter, now under review, as seeking to recognise the internationally accepted right of the State to exercise sovereignty over all the mineral and petroleum resources, which is a reiteration as this has been the case since the long-standing enactment of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA).

He made the point that the charter also aimed at helping the country to deracialise the ownership of the mining industry to ensure sustainability, but made no reference to the large black-controlled mining companies that have been emerging over the period that the charter has been in place.

His reference to trusting that discussions on the charter between government and business would yield results so that the process can be finalised made no reference to the break with collective decision-making in the Department of Mineral Resources under incumbent Minerals Minister Mosebenzi Zwane, who now issues unilateral gazette notices around already legally challenged issues.

Zuma made no bones about the State under his leadership continuing to pursue direct State involvement in mining, which began with his launching of the moderately performing State coal mining company several years ago.

On laying down 2017 as the year in which the new Mining Company of South Africa Bill will be presented to Cabinet and Parliament, he drew attention to the MPRDA Amendment Bill being sent back to Parliament so that issues relating to the public consultation process undertaken by provincial legislatures could be addressed.

Against the background of these matters taking an age to complete, the President said: “We trust that it shall be processed and returned for finalisation without much delay so that the concerns relating to uncertainty raised by business can be resolved.”

Other points made were that government was continuing to work with other stakeholders to combat illegal mining to save lives and to prevent the trafficking of precious metals and diamonds.

He said government was also continuing to place great emphasis on the health and safety of mineworkers and was working with mining companies to ensure that lives were protected at all times.