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

Bikitsha: A R150-million carrot is being dangled in front of the Gautrain project team to complete the crucial first phase of the rapid-rail scheme in time for 2010 World Cup. Can they do it?

Creamer:
Well, they have set an incentivised framework and we now know that they will have to do it by June 11 and not June 28 on 2010. It is 17 days ahead of their original schedule. What has been incentivised is R150-million is up for grabs to incentivise the Bombela team to make sure that they reach this target and have the rapid rail first phase up and running at the time of the 2010. That, of course, is not the entire scheme, as we say it is the first phase and the crucial phase from the OR Tambo Airport to Sandton and also the Midrand leg and it doesn't involve the Centurion side where there are some issues that still have to be resolved or the tricky tunnelling area between Rosebank and Johannesburg. The first Gautrain coaches will be arriving in 2008 when the first rail will also be laid and the first train-sets will probably be build entirely in the UK, but there after there will be locally assembled in South Africa.

Bikitsha: Now, mining is heading for full automation, says one of the world's top mining equipment suppliers. Tell us more.

Creamer: Yes, Atlas Copco of Sweden, in Johannesburg this week, said that the future of mining is a fully automated one. There are already four mines in the world, which are completely automated and they say there are more in their projects on the go themselves. They have had a virtual reality underground mine automated one in Sweden now for some time now. You can dial-up on the internet and through cellphone links and see that in operation they work with their clients and this is a crucial thing that the client have to have big buy-in if this is going to succeed. You could, in theory, have an operator in a control room in Johannesburg and that operator would be able to control mining activity underground in Rustenburg and you would have an entire fleet of trucks and machines working in unison in this automated way without any human intervention at all. Of course, we know that a year ago we saw that at De Beers Finsch mine in the Northern Cape. They are already introducing that driverless loop and we see the automatic move from the drill point to the drop point. So, it is a reality already and they say it is going to accelerate.

Bikitsha: Finally, Martin, South Africa's automotive industry is planning to invest R1-billion to boost South Africa's technical-skills base. When does this happen?

Creamer: What has happened is that in the past six years they have trained up 12 0000 people. Now they want to invest R1-billion to double that. They are targeting in the next six years training 24 000 people, skilling them up with artisans, technicians or putting them through learnerships. This is being done, of course, by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa with two other automotive industry bodies also concerned. There will be an international element as well with some of the companies giving their trainees international exposure. Toyota alone is going to spend about R600-million in training in the next six years and they have just set up an academy of training which will give access to people throughout Africa. Their intention is also to have this element of international training to round people off for global competitiveness, because the target of Naamsa is to actually produce a million cars a year in South Africa. That is their ultimate target, they feel that will be critical mass and we are going to need a lot of people that are trained up to back up that target.

Bikitsha: 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.

Click here to listen to original audio