New mines minister ‘virtually unknown’
SA’s new mineral resources minister draws mixed reactions from labour unions and industry players.
|||Lusaka/Johannesburg - South Africa, the world’s largest producer of platinum, replaced its mineral resources minister amid planned layoffs by miners and a commodity-price slump.
Mosebenzi Joseph Zwane will succeed Ngoako Ramathlodi, who has become the public service and administration minister, the Presidency said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.
Zwane, a former official of the Free State provincial government in departments ranging from economics to agriculture, will be sworn in on Wednesday in Pretoria, it said.
“One cannot slam the door in his face, but the point is he has no track record,” Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) President Joseph Mathunjwa said by phone on Wednesday. “He has only been on a provincial platform. Mining is another terrain, it needs a person with a thick skin.” Amcu is the biggest labour organisation in platinum.
South Africa is the world’s largest producer of manganese and the largest gold exporter on the continent. Plunging commodity prices are adding pressure on an industry struggling with regulatory changes and unreliable power supplies, and some of the country’s biggest miners are threatening to cut jobs.
Ramathlodi, appointed in May 2014 during a five-month strike that halted most operations of the world’s three biggest producers “showed mining companies that he is a custodian of our minerals”, and sought to include Amcu in negotiations, Mathunjwa said.
Mining accounts for more than half of the nation’s exports and employs about 440 000 people, a critical source of jobs in a nation with a 25-percent unemployment rate.
National Union of Mineworkers General Secretary David Sipunzi has “no complaints” about Zwane’s appointment even though he isn’t known by the industry, he said by phone. Ramathlodi’s “overall performance was commendable”, he said.
Roger Baxter, chief executive officer of the Chamber of Mines, declined to comment when contacted by mobile phone, saying the organisation will release a statement in due course.
BLOOMBERG