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According to a recent ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) Statement, the NEC resolved to appoint two senior researchers and a project manager to investigate successful models that could be considered on the role of the state in mining. The ANC's Economic Transformation Committee would provide the terms of reference for the research project.

The fact that the research is to focus on successful models of state involvement appears to indicate that the result is a foregone conclusion. The intention that a report be presented to the NEC in the last quarter of 2011 in preparation for the ANC policy conference in 2012 is ostensibly an attempt to provide credibility to a decision in favour of state involvement in mining.

The research team should look no further than Alexkor, a wholly state-owned mining entity which has posted losses over several years, has gradually become disengaged from the community it is supposed to benefit, and has suffered an increasing loss of experienced mining skills.

More significantly, Alexkor has failed because of the government's inability to recapitalise Alexkor's mining operations, presumably due to competing demands on the Treasury. It has been estimated that the loss in the value of mining companies, due to the recent economic crisis, has run into billions of rands - not a burden that government can afford to carry considering the competing socio-economic demands.

The ANC Youth League's claims that the State Mining Company should "maximise the nation's economic gain from the mineral resources" and "contribute to South Africa's social and economic development" is clearly a fallacy to which many African mining jurisdictions, for example Tanzania, bear testimony.