It is unlikely that many of the ANC's policy proposals on state intervention in the mining sector will come to fruition
"Reality and contradictions will get in the way of the Sims proposals," Michael Spicer, vice president of Business Leadership South Africa, said on Wednesday.
"I very much doubt if we will see many of those [come to fruition], if any at all, because the importance of a growing industry will become clearer as the debate proceeds."
Spicer was speaking in Johannesburg at a discussion hosted by the FW de Klerk Foundation on the recent ANC policy conference.
He said the fundamental flaw of some of the proposals was an assumption that the mining industry "continues on autopilot" whatever interventions occurred.
There was almost no reference to growing the mining industry.
An alternative vision would be to ask what it would take to turn South Africa into the number one mining country in the world.
Spicer said many facts and figures of the contribution of the mining industry were simply not understood.
It was incumbent on the mining industry to do a much better lobbying and communication job, he said.
Sims proposals, to be further discussed at the ANC's conference in Mangaung in December, include a super-tax on mining profits and merging a number of government departments to form a super-economic ministry. – Sapa