The government’s rejection of the full scale implementation of nationalisation in favour of a mixed economy was concerning for the future of the mining industry, trade union Solidarity said on Wednesday.
“Certainty about property rights is a cornerstone of a peaceful and prosperous society,” Solidarity researcher Piet le Roux said in response to the president’s State of the Nation address.
“What the president has in mind with a mixed economy undermines property rights and, therefore, poses a real threat to the prosperity of almost all South Africans,” he said in a statement.
A mixed economy is an economic system in which both the state and the private sector direct the economy.
Le Roux said the substitution of nationalisation with a mixed economy was perhaps inspired by China’s apparent state-led economic growth.
China’s growth had been achieved primarily through the introduction of limited free market reforms since the 1970s and not via increased state intervention, said Solidarity.
The ANC’s national executive committee received a report at the beginning of February about state intervention in the mining sector.
‘Not our policy’
Zuma later told a gathering in Cape Town that the nationalisation of mines was not ANC or government policy. “Nationalisation is not our policy. It’s as clear as that.”
He said the ANC Youth League, under the leadership of Julius Malema, had raised the issue and, as was the norm, it would be discussed at ANC policy conferences.
Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel told a mining indaba that the industry needed policy certainty.
“The mining sector is so fundamentally important as a platform to construct the [upliftment] transition that we can’t be able to take this idea of nationalisation forward,” he said.
“If some doomsayer comes along and generates another lie [about nationalisation], don’t believe them.”
The government would rather look to partnerships with the private sector to uplift the sector through education, improved working conditions and more rights, he said.
Solidarity is expected to release a study on Thursday to highlight the value of the private mining industry. — Sapa