new sa mining initiatives - opportunities

Shabangu & the ANC making all the right noises for supporting SA miners & explorers. With our experienced SA management team, new cashed up & politically well connected BBBEE partner SIOC-cdt, plus backing from EDF, KORES, ABSA/Barclays - Conti looks well set to take advantage of these new incentives:


20 days for lapsed rights ideas as govt embarks on big exploration push

By: Martin Creamer

7th February 2012

CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – The mining industry has 20 days to offer ideas on lapsed and revoked mineral rights as the South African government embarks on a big new exploration push to catch up with the fall in South Africa’s share of global exploration.

Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said at the official opening of the Investing in Africa Mining Indaba on Tuesday that the Department of Mineral Resources (DME) had on Monday placed a Government Gazette notice inviting comments on the implementation of a new process of applying for lapsed or revoked prospecting and mineral rights.

Shabangu said that the government was seeking to ensure that there was investment in mining beyond what she condemned as “the current unacceptably varied levels”.

She said that there was significant potential for the discovery of other world-class deposits using the latest exploration technologies and enhanced geoscientific data.

It was against that background that the government was now embarking on an effort to support exploration as part of the Mining Industry Growth and Development Task Team (Migdett) so that South Africa could discover new deposits and meet job creation objectives by opening new mines to replace the diminishing reserves.

To this end, the Treasury had set aside a budget over the next three years for geoscientific research by the Council for Geoscience, which would undertake geological, geophysical and geochemical work that would be made accessible to potential investors.

“This is the Migdett spirit of collaboration that we have to nurture if we have to take the mining industry to its rightful place,” the Minister said.

The initial teething problems of South Africa’s online cadastral system – the South African Mineral Resources Administration System, which enables right seekers to apply remotely on the DME’s website – had been solved, with well over 3 000 applications now successfully lodged.

The Minister said that the African National Congress task team on the nationalisation of the mining industry had reaffirmed the government’s consistent decision that nationalisation was not a viable policy for South Africa.