TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – When asked to comment this week on reports that her director general (DG) Sandile Nogxina was leaving, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu joked that she hadn’t decided that he could.

“I read about it in the papers, but meanwhile I haven’t taken a decision on that,” she said.

In February, Miningmx reported Nogxina would be leaving the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) as his contract expires at the end of the year.

In an interview at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) in Toronto, Shabangu said: “I’m not sure the DG is leaving. I still need him, he still has a lot to do”.

For starters, the DMR is busy drawing up amendments to the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act, which she said it will submit to Cabinet by the end of the month.

Nogxina played a key role in drawing up the original act.

Shabangu said she hired Nogxina 13 years ago, when she was Deputy Minister in what was then called the Department of Mining and Energy.

“We will look at succession when that time comes, there are possibilities,” she told Mining Weekly Online.

Who are the leading candidates?

Shabangu suggested that she would not necessarily appoint somebody from inside the department to the post, but may look to hiring somebody from the private sector.

“We have a lot of good people from the mining sector who are quite clued up with the government, so I think we do have potential candidates,” she noted.