Economic plan falls short of stabilising mining industry

While Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s new economic action plan has been welcomed, the Chamber of Mines (CoM) believes that more must be done to stabilise an industry in crisis. Mining Weekly reports that with some 70 000 jobs lost over the past five years, and declines in net and gross investment over the past two years, National Treasury’s action plan, as it currently stands, did not effectively deal with the critical challenges facing the mining sector, CoM said in its response to the announcement of the action steps. The report says before the release of Gigaba’s action plan, the CoM met with the Finance Minister to discuss the crisis facing the mining sector and the specific challenges and issues that need to be resolved to revive the industry. The action plan had already been developed at that stage and, therefore, many of the raised concerns and possible solutions were not included in the interventions moving forward.