The moratorium on prospecting licence applications would be lifted in all South African provinces from March 1 except in Mpumalanga, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said on Tuesday.

Shabangu said the audit undertaken during the overall period of moratorium had shown that the challenges in Mpumalanga were bigger than expected.

“We will lift the moratorium in eight provinces, but not in Mpumalanga, because there is still more work to be done there,” she told a media conference on the sidelines of the Mining Indaba in Cape Town.

The continuation of the moratorium in the province for another "two to three months" stemmed mainly, the Minister said, from environmental concerns and the preservation of wetlands.

Rights were inappropriately granted in some ecologically sensitive areas, and extending the moratorium would provide the time for the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) to consult with those who had been granted prospecting rights in areas where such rights should have been withheld.

As the moratorium was applicable to new applications only, those in Mpumalanga with existing prospecting rights and mining rights would continue to operate.

The DMR will on March 1 introduce a new online system of applying for licences electronically.

An amendment would be introduced to prevent licences for different metals on the same site being granted by making it obligatory to report the presence of metals and minerals on the site other than those covered in the application.

The audit done during the period of moratorium and audit had shown that mining was taking place without environmental management plans and with incomplete applications, which was of great concern.

Notices had been served on such concerns to comply and the mines of those who fail to respond to the notices would be closed.

“We have no choice but to revoke licences and to close those operations down,” Shabangu added.

On the possibility of parties mounting legal challenges against the DMR, the Minister said that the department was being litigated “almost every day”.

She said that the DMR was ready to take litigation head on to avoid a “mockery of the system”.

Due legal process had been followed that would enable the DMR to contest legal challenges at a time of acknowledged weaknesses in the law.

The review of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act was progressing and by the end of the year South Africa would have an Act that had been overhauled.