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The Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs has resolved to convene an urgent meeting with the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) to discuss the state of environmental rehabilitation and financial provisioning in the mining industry.

The Committee today was briefed by the Department of Environmental Affairs on the implementation of the "One Environmental System" and on Financial Provisioning Regulations which raised a lot of questions regarding mining activities in the country. Among some of the issues that arose during the meeting, were questions on the governance and management of the environmental rehabilitation fund in the mining industry, which is being administered by the Department of Mineral Resources. The report on Environmental Governance in the Mining Sector by the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation compiled in 2015 brings to surface many of the environmental issues in the mining industry.

The Chairperson of the Committee, Mr Phillemon Mapulane, commented on the fact that currently it is the Department of Mineral Resources that is responsible for the rehabilitation fund. "For an example, there is information in the public domain of a R1.3bn of the rehabilitation fund that the Department of Mineral Resources approved to be transferred from Standard Bank to the Bank of Baroda in the process of the acquisition of Optimum mine. That was money that was in the rehabilitation fund which was to be used for the environmental rehabilitation of the mine. It is important that the Committee engages with DMR to deal with this and other questions, because it talks to the management and the governance of the rehabilitation fund. This is money that is supposed to be put aside for the rehabilitation of the mine," he said.

The Committee was scheduled to be briefed by both the Department of Mineral Resources and Department of Monitoring and Evaluation on these issues. "These are some of the questions that I feel the DMR should have been here to answer for themselves, not on any other thing but on environmental issues. Because part of the responsibility has been taken into DMR. I think DMR must then account to this Committee on how they are exercising that responsibility," said Mr Mapulane.

Mr Mapulane concluded by saying: "It is the view of the Committee that mining is a very important economic activity that contributes to employment creation and economic growth in South Africa but it must be done in a responsible way. It must be done in a way that promotes environmental sustainability so that it does not become a burden to communities that stay around the mines and it does not impose an obligation on the state to rehabilitate the mines after they have finished mining and have extracted all the mineral resources."

Issued by Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs, Mr Phillemon Mapulane