Mining in focus
Mining in focus
Cyril Ramaphosa, president of the Republic of South Africa, on stage at the
2019 Investing in African Mining Indaba.
25th anniversary of Mining Indaba, and for an impressive State
of the Nation Address (SONA) by the president two days later,
also in Cape Town. At Indaba, Mantashe made all the right noises
about regulatory certainty and political stability, and Ramaphosa
promised that the architects and beneficiaries of state capture will
be reveling in “orange overalls” soon — everything the expectant
crowd wanted to hear.
Optimism at Indaba
In fact, Mantashe’s speech really set the tone for the rest of the
week at the Convention Centre in the Mother City, where the
mood, at least on the surface, seemed somewhat more optimistic
than that of the previous three or four years. “Despite challenges
like a weakening rand, volatile commodity prices, and a slowdown
in global economic growth, we remain optimistic about the future
of mining in South Africa,” Mantashe said under loud applause.
We care about our
communities; community voices
should be heard.
But lingering questions were brewing among the more
pessimistic after Mantashe’s first-day appearance. The problems at
power utility Eskom, and its ability to deliver enough electricity
to sustain the mining industry, were the most prominent. The
questions were not only about mining, and growing the industry,
www.miningmirror.co.za
APRIL 2019 MINING MIRROR [25]
APRIL 2019 MINING MIRROR [25]