Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, other members of Cabinet present here, hon members, dignitaries from the mining houses, representatives and leaders of organised labour in the mining sector, the Minister's tabling of this Budget Vote policy statement takes place at a time when memories of the Lonmin Platinum Mine tragedy at Marikana are still fresh in the minds of many South Africans. This and other ongoing industrial strikes engulfing the mining sector in South Africa call for decisive leadership and bold action from government, labour and business.
The leadership required should work towards accelerating transformation within the mining sector as a means towards ensuring social cohesion, social responsibility and responsive corporate citizenship. Our commitment to transforming the apartheid colonial socioeconomic relations in the mining sector in particular will never be found wanting.
We make this bold statement, convinced that none but ourselves and the masses of our people, led by the ANC, will continue to identify and correct the fault lines in the policy choices we have made in pursuit of fundamental transformation. In doing this, we will neither claim easy victories nor resort to fallacy in order to play to the gallery, as has become fashionable in the contemporary South African body politic.
Of course, we witnessed this not so long ago when opposition parties wanted us to digress from debating a very important policy issue on mining transformation. They have no intentions regarding the conditions of our people, the majority of whom are black - our African majority - in South Africa. Transformation is not like driving on a highway, counting the number of cars you pass while driving to a destination. It is a complex process of change that involves people and that observes the objective conditions that prevail at a given time. When the Minister and the rest of South Africa's government dig deep to find sustainable solutions for the process of change, it is an important process of development.
In any case, we must state that when the ANC adopted the Freedom Charter, the racist minority regime said it was a communist party document, that it smelt of ideology. It is no surprise that they want to hide their history. Today the hon member was unable to hide associating himself with a stagnated backward party that still smells ideology where none exists. [Applause.] It is clear that the DA wants to cling to the old apartheid colonial structure of the economy, because they stand to benefit and because it represents the interests of the white minority.
The debate on the transformation of the mining industry must be premised on breaking down the historical accumulation based on extractive mining, cheap labour, and environmentally degrading and socially irresponsible mining. The change we pursue in the mining industry seeks to advance environmentally sensitive mining, patriotic corporate citizenship, industrialisation that expands mining production, creating decent jobs and building competitiveness in our mining industry. The expansion of mining production should include building a reliable and efficient industrial supplier network upstream and efficient downstream value-adding processing and beneficiation of mineral products. Our focus on sector competitiveness is about improving production and management efficiencies, unleashing production innovation and improving product quality and services within the sector.
Africa possesses natural resources adequate for its needs and future development. As a country, we are poised to play a meaningful and exemplary role in ensuring that our national and natural assets are optimally exploited to build sustainable downstream production opportunities. A message is repeated endlessly that we should use our existing and positive heritage to lead the continent out of poverty, away from underdevelopment and towards sustainable growth and development.
The continent remains a virgin platform for unparalleled growth and development - ongoing discoveries and an abundance of natural resources present an opportunity to further the goals of integration and regeneration of all the people and the economy of our beloved continent of Africa.
Our mineral resource policy framework must always seek to create a balance between vibrant economic growth and a sustainable environment. Our present needs remain unquestionable and justifiable, as long as our actions are sensitive to the environment so that all South Africans, present and future, enjoy the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or wellbeing. Our generation must guarantee this right by urgently addressing and enforcing mine rehabilitation challenges in all the forms in which they manifest themselves.
Transformation of the mineral sector must be thorough and timely. Parliament must be sensitive to the needs of all sectors in our society - in this case, the needs of both labour and business. The casualisation of labour and the ever-present onslaught against the labour rights remain critical elements that will define the success of our transformation policies.
Industrial relation practices must enhance opportunities for transformation of the sector by embracing labour as a factor critical to the success of the sector. This is an aspect of transformation missed altogether by proponents of labour broking. Not only does the model of labour broking serve to alienate workers and undermine socioeconomic transformation, but it will ultimately trap the majority of black people in perpetual dependency and poverty. We cannot allow practices aimed at short-lived gains at the expense of our national pursuit of political and economic emancipation of our people. Companies should demonstrate commitment to economic transformation by ensuring that workers participate meaningfully in transformation. The state must align its strategies for the financing sector based on enterprise development. Indeed, there are several financing opportunities and institutions created for enterprise development. However, they do not succeed because they lack the critical ingredients of being relevant, accessible and transparent. Enterprise development financing must target opportunities for new entrants at different phases of mining and beneficiation. They must be proactive in supporting their target clientele by providing an easy-to-do A-to-Z solution relevant to the sector.
In many cases, access to institutional financing has hidden requirements that are costly to beneficiaries. For this reason, the department must engage government-created financial institutions to address their models and criteria to speed up enterprise development in the sector. This imperative extends equally to subcontracting opportunities within the sector, which are inaccessible to the historically disadvantaged.
Transaction costs are high and favour historical relationships against new enterprises. The management composition is mainly white and male. The management composition - I restate this - is mainly white and male, and thus tends to perpetuate networking practices that alienate new enterprises. This is how the left wants the status quo to remain.
Transformation cannot be left to the whims of private business alone in this sector. The developmental state must seek innovative ways and models of incubating the businesses of historically disadvantaged individuals with a view to promoting business maturity and independence. At the same time, nonperformance in terms of the targets of the charter and the legislation must carry punitive sanctions.
This means that the current model of financing business development may not be enough. We need specialised interventions in this sector. The intervention must develop requisite sector expertise, understand the business processes and requirements and proactively develop strategic interventions that promote rapid transformation.
Our mineral resources are not without limits. We have already witnessed instances of mining operations that have run their full cycle and have faced or are facing potential closure. The ANC government must act in haste to ensure that before these resources are depleted, no efforts are spared in promoting the proportional distribution of resources to our people. In order to do this, we must undertake the following: enforce compliance with the current protocols and charters; ensure affirmation of the previously disadvantaged, especially women at all levels of management; and speed up efforts for skills development, especially of artisans across different disciplines of mining operations. Through this, we need to implement the skills accord that is articulated by the New Growth Path.
We also have to advance efforts regarding deep-mining technologies for the next phase of mining operations. By the way, Minister, regarding Gold Fields, Welkom, in the province I come from, we are told that gold is at a level where it is deep and expensive to mine. We also have to strengthen research and development for innovation and technologies.
Finally, the ANC supports this budget allocation in that it will help propel forward the transformation agenda. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]