The mining industry has celebrated the recent confirmation of the “once empowered, always empowered” principle, saying it will restore the regulatory certainty needed to spur investment.
But against the backdrop of slow transformation, in mining and in other sectors, others say the ruling will set already listless empowerment efforts back to square one.
Last week, a judgment by the Pretoria high court set aside certain aspects of the third iteration of the mining charter — devised to advance transformation in the country’s mining sector.