Date: 27/01/05
Source: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Title: Makwetla: Mpumalanga Mining Summit
Keynote Address by Premier Mr TSP Makwetla, at the Mpumalanga Mining Summit, Piennaardam Leisure Resorts, Middleburg
27 January 2005
Program Director MEC for Economic Development and Planning, Mr William Lubisi Other Members of the Executive Council present Representatives of the Chamber of Mines and other mining companies in the province Representatives of organised labour Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen
It is an honour for us to be here today on the occasion of the Mpumalanga Mining Summit. In the build up to our Provincial Growth and Development Summit, over the past year, various sectoral summits have been held in an effort to develop a wide-ranging consensus on the interventions needed for our province to achieve growth and development.
I am happy that a sector that can be considered to be the cornerstone of the provincial economy is finally holding its own Summit.
Indeed, your gathering over these next two days is a remarkable sign of the growing momentum towards the provincial Growth and Development Summit, which we all hope can become the bedrock or foundation for accelerated provincial efforts to eradicate poverty and create employment.
Mpumalanga has long been synonymous with mining activity in our country.
It is the province of Witbank, Lydenburg, Barberton, and Pilgrims Rest, where some of the roots of ownership patterns and characteristics of the sector were laid more than a century ago.
And just as mining has made an important contribution to the national economy and provided the impetus for both the development of an extensive physical infrastructure and the establishment of the country's secondary industry, so too have we also seen such impacts in our own regional economy.
Today some have estimated that Mpumalanga has 217 big and small mines strewn across the province, which contribute 22,3 percent of our provincial Gross Value Added, or the value of the final goods and services produced in our province.
In 2002, there was an estimated 60 000 workers employed in mining in Mpumalanga and between 1998 and 2002 mining has also been one of our top exporters and earners of valuable foreign exchange.
Impressive as they may be, these figures may actually understate the importance and role of mining in our province.
This province is endowed with extensive mineral deposits of coal, gold, platinum, and vanadium, to name a few.
But above all, this is a province responsible for approximately 83% of total coal production in the country.
If you take into account that coal is responsible for addressing the country's major energy needs, with the majority being converted into electricity by Eskom and some converted into oil by Sasol, then you begin to see the significance of mining in this province.
According to Eskom, our country has the cheapest electricity in the world, which makes us fairly attractive from an investment point of view, but is due to the coal that is produced here in Mpumalanga.
A large share of electricity consumption is in manufacturing, particularly in energy intensive smelting and refining processes that we all know to be found in parts of the province such as Middleburg and Lydenburg.
The importance of mining in the province is therefore reflected in the extensive linkages that exist between mining, electricity, and manufacturing, links which have lead to some commentators talking of the presence of what can be called a Mineral-Energy-Complex in our region.
It is unfortunate that the history of mining is one that mirrors our country's long and painful journey through colonialism and apartheid.
As a province, and indeed the country as a whole, we are blessed with being one of the world's richest countries in terms of minerals. But until the arrival of our liberation, this wealth was only used for the benefit of a tiny minority.
At the dawn of our new found democracy there were still those who saw the restructuring of the mining industry as something that should be left to market forces with minimum attention from the state.
Even today there are those who see little wrong with dominant ownership patterns or practices in the sector that to some of us may be hindering the sector's contribution to overall growth and development.
It is through the vigilance and persuasiveness of democratic forces in the country that such views have not prevailed.
From the Freedom Charter of 1955 to the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of 1994, the transformation of mining has always been at the centre of the democratic movement's development agenda.
As we enter this second decade of democracy, we are pleased to observe that there is much that gives us hope that this sector is on the road towards transformation.
There is reason to be hopeful that this is a sector that will give meaning to the words proclaimed in the Freedom Charter, that 'the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people
Source: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Title: Makwetla: Mpumalanga Mining Summit
Keynote Address by Premier Mr TSP Makwetla, at the Mpumalanga Mining Summit, Piennaardam Leisure Resorts, Middleburg
27 January 2005
Program Director MEC for Economic Development and Planning, Mr William Lubisi Other Members of the Executive Council present Representatives of the Chamber of Mines and other mining companies in the province Representatives of organised labour Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen
It is an honour for us to be here today on the occasion of the Mpumalanga Mining Summit. In the build up to our Provincial Growth and Development Summit, over the past year, various sectoral summits have been held in an effort to develop a wide-ranging consensus on the interventions needed for our province to achieve growth and development.
I am happy that a sector that can be considered to be the cornerstone of the provincial economy is finally holding its own Summit.
Indeed, your gathering over these next two days is a remarkable sign of the growing momentum towards the provincial Growth and Development Summit, which we all hope can become the bedrock or foundation for accelerated provincial efforts to eradicate poverty and create employment.
Mpumalanga has long been synonymous with mining activity in our country.
It is the province of Witbank, Lydenburg, Barberton, and Pilgrims Rest, where some of the roots of ownership patterns and characteristics of the sector were laid more than a century ago.
And just as mining has made an important contribution to the national economy and provided the impetus for both the development of an extensive physical infrastructure and the establishment of the country's secondary industry, so too have we also seen such impacts in our own regional economy.
Today some have estimated that Mpumalanga has 217 big and small mines strewn across the province, which contribute 22,3 percent of our provincial Gross Value Added, or the value of the final goods and services produced in our province.
In 2002, there was an estimated 60 000 workers employed in mining in Mpumalanga and between 1998 and 2002 mining has also been one of our top exporters and earners of valuable foreign exchange.
Impressive as they may be, these figures may actually understate the importance and role of mining in our province.
This province is endowed with extensive mineral deposits of coal, gold, platinum, and vanadium, to name a few.
But above all, this is a province responsible for approximately 83% of total coal production in the country.
If you take into account that coal is responsible for addressing the country's major energy needs, with the majority being converted into electricity by Eskom and some converted into oil by Sasol, then you begin to see the significance of mining in this province.
According to Eskom, our country has the cheapest electricity in the world, which makes us fairly attractive from an investment point of view, but is due to the coal that is produced here in Mpumalanga.
A large share of electricity consumption is in manufacturing, particularly in energy intensive smelting and refining processes that we all know to be found in parts of the province such as Middleburg and Lydenburg.
The importance of mining in the province is therefore reflected in the extensive linkages that exist between mining, electricity, and manufacturing, links which have lead to some commentators talking of the presence of what can be called a Mineral-Energy-Complex in our region.
It is unfortunate that the history of mining is one that mirrors our country's long and painful journey through colonialism and apartheid.
As a province, and indeed the country as a whole, we are blessed with being one of the world's richest countries in terms of minerals. But until the arrival of our liberation, this wealth was only used for the benefit of a tiny minority.
At the dawn of our new found democracy there were still those who saw the restructuring of the mining industry as something that should be left to market forces with minimum attention from the state.
Even today there are those who see little wrong with dominant ownership patterns or practices in the sector that to some of us may be hindering the sector's contribution to overall growth and development.
It is through the vigilance and persuasiveness of democratic forces in the country that such views have not prevailed.
From the Freedom Charter of 1955 to the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of 1994, the transformation of mining has always been at the centre of the democratic movement's development agenda.
As we enter this second decade of democracy, we are pleased to observe that there is much that gives us hope that this sector is on the road towards transformation.
There is reason to be hopeful that this is a sector that will give meaning to the words proclaimed in the Freedom Charter, that 'the national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people
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