South Africa's "ambiguous" minerals legislation would be subjected to a "major overhaul" and issues relating to Kumba Iron Ore, ArcelorMittal South Africa and platinum miner Lonmin would be dealt with "immediately" and taken to the Cabinet "soon", Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu said on Tuesday.

From September 1, information on the status of exploration and mining licences would be accessible on the Department of Mineral Resources' (DMR's) website, "in the interest of transparency". All stakeholders, including members of the public, would have access to the new electronic administrative system.

Within the next six months, the DMR would also have a completely new system of 'licence-process tracking' ready for public access.

The September 1 prospecting licence moratorium, which would be gazetted shortly, would endure for six months to allow for a comprehensive audit of the licences granted since the promulgation of the MPRDA.

Flanked by DMR director-general Sandile Nogxina and economic adviser Dr Iraj Abedian, Shabangu told a large media contingent that "gaps and weaknesses" had been identified in the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA), which was without precedent.

"We are confident that we are ready to review the Act and to go to Cabinet on the issues," she said.

The director-general had identified many administrative gaps and an audit would be done on the DMR's systems and existing mining and prospecting licences, which numbered more than 25 000 since 2004.

"We want to consolidate, to see where we are, as the department and where we are going," she added.

"We also intend dealing with some of the glaring areas in the legislation, which we think might be ambiguous, where we have our own interpretation, and others had different interpretations.

"We want to clarify those issues. We want to revisit the MPRDA and go to Parliament in making sure that, from the beginning of next year, there is a relook at the Act, and improvements in those areas where we think that we've got major challenges. We also want to clarify the letter of the law," she said.

In the interim, there were issues relating to Kumba Iron Ore, ArcelorMittal South Africa and platinum-mining company Lonmin, which she intended to revisit the law immediately and to go to the Cabinet "soon".

Shabangu said that steps were being taken to improve the administrative processes regarding the issuing of licences.

"We acknowledge that there are gaps and weaknesses in our system, which we intend to address," Shabangu said.

The Ministry was reviewing the issues of the legislative process and would doing a "major overhaul" of the MPRDA, which she said was "a relatively new piece of legislation".

"There is a lack of well developed jurisprudence which would ordinarily assist with interpretation of the law," Shabangu said.

In the absence of such precedents, officials applied the letter of the law as opposed, for example, to interpreting the spirit or intentions of the law.

She would also deal with the lack of transparency around South Africa's licensing data, which was causing "unnecessary suspicion".

There were administrative capacity problems, and there were increasing perceptions of corruption and incompetence, with two regional office officials suspended.

A joint stakeholder task team had identified a list of amendments to the MPRDA and these would be submitted to Parliament for processing as soon as possible.

"This will further enable us to clean up our database, thus paving the way for the incorporation of uncorrupted data into our new integrated electronic application administrative system," Shabangu said.

All other existing licensing activities would continue as normal.

With immediate effect, prospecting rights would cease to be issued at regional office level and would instead be issued from the DMR head office.

The ongoing internal investigation had revealed more than 100 cases of apparent administrative irregularities, which differed in degrees of materiality.

Chief directors would be deployed to regional offices, also as of September 1, in order to strengthen leadership and oversight at the site of service delivery.

All cases of double granting of licences would be resolved within the next three months.

The upgrading of all nine regional offices would continue and was scheduled to be completed within the next six months.

Allegations of abuse of office and corruption would be dealt with "speedily and effectively".

"Towards this end, we would like to encourage the media and the general public to furnish us with the relevant information in order to investigate and refer for prosecution such cases," Shabangu urged.

"The order of processing of applications the so called 'packing order' in Chapter 4 of the Act is an area where we will clearly need to make amendments. As a result, a number of areas that need amendment have been identified.

"In general, we have found some of the provisions of the law being open to more than one interpretation. For example, Section 11, relating to regulating the transferability of rights, is one other area of the law that we will be paying attention to as we amend, taking from the lessons and experience we have had where rights have been granted to certain entities and sold to others the next day without being exercised in term of the undertakings being made at application stage and therefore breaching the material terms and condition of such rights," Shabangu said.

Another example of serious lessons from the current construct of the MPRDA was the "grey area" with regard to regulating "associated minerals" - which arose with the Lonmin case.

Currently, the law allowed for the granting of different minerals to different entities on the same land, and the amendment processes would therefore have to consider a clear format of associated-minerals regulation.

Matters of administrative discretion, for long criticised by regulatory lawyer Peter Leon, would also form part of the proposed legislative review.

The new administrative regime would be supported by a new quality management information technology (IT) backbone to improve licencing application management and administration of existing rights.

The IT system was designed with robust global information systems capability to enhance land use, protection of sensitive areas and communication with other interested stakeholders.

Workflow capability, which was central to the new system's functionality, would ensure tracking, sequential processing of applications and improve accountability of personnel in the management of the licensing process.

The DMR would be able to conduct mine audits and inspections in line with a priority schedule and enhance document security and management.

"The system will improve reporting to all stakeholders, government, markets, and the departmental principals. Transparency and consistency will be the hallmark in the management of South Africa's mineral resources," the DMR said in a media release.

Shabangu said that South Africa's mining industry remained "the bedrock" of the South African economy.

"The mining sector, together with its related industries, remains critical to the country's socioeconomic development," she added.

She again drew attention to Citibank of the US placing South Africa in the top global position with R18-trillion worth of mineral reserves.

Only two months ago, the leadership of the business, labour and government components of South Africa's mining industry signed a declaration to work together to ensure that the industry improved its global competitiveness, promoted investment and achieved transformation.

"There is no doubt that clouds have been gathering over our country's mining reputation and I want to reassure all our stakeholders that South Africa is indeed a mining jurisdiction worthy of future investment," Shabangu added.