BRYAN PEARSON, Johannesburg | Monday 3.20pm
THE government has postponed until later this week the visit of a high-level team to persuade European countries, particularly Britain, to halt the sale of their gold reserves, officials said.
The delegation, headed by Mineral and Energy Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, was to have left for London on Sunday night but will now leave on Thursday at the earliest, her aide said on Monday. Mlambo-Ngcuka told public SABC television that the visit has been delayed to allow other Southern African Development Community countries to join the delegation as the crisis also affects them.
“There are citizens of countries such as Malawi, Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania and Lesotho working in South African mines,” the minister said. “The gold sales affect them directly as the closure of mines could lead to massive retrenchments. Zambia and Tanzania had already agreed to join the delegation, while Ghana and Mali, two gold producing countries in west Africa, are also being urged to support the mission.
The aim of the mission is to convince European governments that the sales of gold are badly affecting the price of bullion and are crushing the economies and employment levels of gold-producing nations.
The delegation is also to visit France, Germany and Switzerland.
Mlambo-Ngcuka said South Africa was realistic enough not to demand a total halt to all sales of gold. “We are not saying to these governments ‘absolutely no sales’, because we realise that some movement has to happen. But we have to handle it in a responsible manner,” she added. — AFP
Meanwhile, African Eye News Service reports that Mozambique is preparing to launch high level discussions with the South African government in an attempt to stave off or mitigate the regional social and economic impact of the gold crisis. Mozambican deputy labour minister Adelaide Amurane said on Monday that Mozambique simply did not have the resources to absorb or provide alternative employment for the first 2500 Mozambican miners retrenched from East Rand Proprietary Mine in Gauteng last week.