With South Africa’s low employment rate, particularly among young people, mining continues to make a valid contribution towards job creation, amid a tough economic operating climate. Photo: Supplied
Over the years, one of the key contributors to South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) has been mining, heralded by economic growth and the involvement and interest in the communities in which they operate.
With South Africa’s low employment rate, particularly among young people, mining continues to make a valid contribution towards job creation, amid a tough economic operating climate.
Across various commodities, mining companies are working hard to retain jobs and make invaluable contributions to the communities where mining rights have been established.
The reality is that since the dawn of our constitutional democracy more than three decades ago, the right to protest has manifested itself in ways that were not expected. While some protests have been legitimate, others have been largely driven by manipulation and criminality.
Across South Africa’s sprawling urban and rural areas, there has been an encouraging sprout of small enterprises organising themselves in the spirit of seeing not only the progress of entrepreneurs, but of the communities they live in. In 1964, the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (NAFCOC) was set up after leaders such as Oliver Tambo were consulted.
It was established as a business forum for the interests of black people across SA, and to advance their interests, not only those seeking quick riches they failed to work hard for, while seeking the exploitation of the very communities they live in.
Today’s reality in SA is that young people are desperate for opportunities and jobs, yet there are those looking at gaps in how to exploit the dire outlook.
While more than six decades back, since the establishment of NAFCOC, it seems like time immemorial, the ideals remain to this day, where there is a need for organised forums, not criminals, to organise communities and present a coherent agenda that serves all, and not a few that aim to line their pockets.
Mining communities in the Free State, North West, Limpopo, Northern Cape, and Gauteng have, over the years, been exploited by people presenting a blurry view, one aimed at not only distorting the facts but also to mislead, with little regard for the consequences of what such actions might bring to those communities.
One of the key objectives of the current business forums should be to unite, empower, and encourage development and entrepreneurship in communities. Yet we continue to see the opposite — serving selfish interests.
Economic activity and growth across SA’s mining communities cannot happen while communities are exploited and remain stuck at the periphery of economic activity.
Whenever legitimate projects come to communities, they are not merely there for profit-driven purposes, but they have been curated in a way that will see the community, in some instances, the region, benefiting as the value chain stretches towards small enterprises, jobs for young people, infrastructure development, legacy projects, and pivotally, empowering the locals with skills they can use in eternity.
While the above is acceptable on paper, the foolhardy is that there are still those willing to fight these. Challenging the status quo of such projects, with good reason, should be acceptable, yet the experience on the ground is that it’s normally the lame, lazy, criminal, and disruptive characters espousing disruption.
Communities have the right to seek the so-called “local content” element, but that does not mean it needs to be done in a criminal act that makes investors rethink their decisions.
The reality is that investors investigate where they put their money, and they ask various questions that need to be honestly answered. One of them, among many, is the social and political stability of the locale of the investment. These are critical not only for the outlook of SA-based investors, but also for international ones who ask all tough questions.
Bearing in mind SA’s communities mentioned above across provinces, it will be ill-advised if we do not strongly condemn the criminal and mafia-like acts we have seen in mining, where legitimate investors are made to beg to invest their money, while criminals wait at the door with little contribution and to block any positive deal with threats, corruption, and fear.
Investments, whether local or foreign, should rightly be interrogated as we continue to face geopolitical implications that call on every community to examine its interests, but this should also be done with good reason, particularly for the greater good of the community, young and old.
- Kenneth Kgwadi is a research fellow at Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI)