The ”scorecard” that is to accompany the mining charter could be published before the end of this week, minerals and energy director general Sandile Nogxina said on Monday.
He said there were two meetings last week with the mining industry on the document, intended to spell out how companies will be measured in terms of the charter’s black empowerment requirements.
”I’m sure that now we can simply release it… everybody’s happy,” he said in Cape Town, where he was attending a meeting of the African Mining Ministers Forum.
Nogxina said there was a misconception that the department had been negotiating the document with the industry. What had been happening was that they had worked together in brainstorming the design of an ”administrative tool that would be simple and understood by everybody”.
It was also incorrect that the scorecard would contain new elements. There was no way it could add to or subtract from the charter.
Asked whether there would be any surprises, he replied: ”Definitely none.”
Earlier, ministers from 16 African countries, including South Africa, who had been meeting at Cape Town’s Mount Nelson Hotel, released a communiqué saying they had agreed to set up an African Mining Partnership.
The aim of the partnership, to be formally established not later than this time next year, would be to champion mining and mineral-related initiatives of the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad).
The ministers’s forum also appointed five of their number to lobby Canada, as leader of the G8’s Africa Fund, to ensure minerals and mining was identified as a ”vehicle for poverty eradication”.
Ethiopian Minister of Mines Mohamoud Dirir Gheddi told journalists the partnership would aim to ensure Africa gained the support it needed to develop this sector.
It would focus on artisinal and small-scale mining, not only on major industry. – Sapa