The Minerals Council South Africa on Wednesday said it was “deeply concerned and saddened” at the violence that had erupted in and around Gauteng over the course of the last few days.
In particular, the council said the mining industry was “disturbed” at the xenophobic character of the violence.
The council explained that, since the inception of the country’s mining industry, South Africa had “owed much of its development and growth to the contributions of non-South African citizens” to its mining operations.
In more recent decades, investments in the mining industries of numerous sub-Saharan African countries and other parts of the world have become part of the lifeblood of many council members.
“These reasons, as well as a recognition of the impact of the instability on the country’s economy and for concern at the human costs inflicted on those targeted in this violence, are the basis of the mining industry’s distress,” the council noted.
“We call on government to maximise efforts to halt the violence and to ensure that those responsible face the full force of the law,” it stated.
However, the council said South Africa also needed to “recognise that joblessness and poverty, though no justification for it, are likely to some extent at the root of some of the violence”.
As a result, for government, the immediate “law and order” response must be supported, too, by urgent economic reform that puts the country back on a reasonable growth path, the council suggested.