Hon Speaker, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers present here, and hon members, firstly, let me convey our deepest condolences to the families of all those who passed away as a result of the recent tragedy at Lonmin in Marikana.
Sithi kwiintsapho zabo akuhlanga lungehlanga, lalani ngenxeba mawethu. [We send our condolences to the families of the deceased; may you be consoled.]
The ANC is entering this debate mindful of the fact that His Excellency President Jacob Zuma acted swiftly after this tragedy by immediately establishing a judicial commission of inquiry to probe all aspects of the Marikana tragedy. He further formed an interministerial committee to intervene in that situation. The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, CCMA, was also brought in to facilitate the resolution of the labour dispute. It helped the parties to end the violence through conclusion of the peace accord on 5 September 2012. We therefore call on all South Africans and interested parties to give this judicial commission of inquiry space and time to conduct its investigation without fear or favour.
The mineral resources in South Africa are common heritage and the endowment of all people of South Africa. The state has as its obligation to leverage the mineral resources to address the historical legacies of apartheid towards the full enjoyment of the benefits of the mineral resources for all South Africans, especially those whose labour was abused under the pretext that the fact that they were black and women automatically qualified them to be exploited.
If the goal of equitable access and the sharing of our mineral wealth is to be attained, then we require an honest and objective diagnosis of the crisis in the mining sector so that in our understandable expressions of horror and haste to address this problem, we do not, in fact, find that we are seized with mere manifestations of the problem. Perhaps we must begin our inquiry with the implementation of the Mining Charter by the mining industry.
The situation obtaining currently in the mining industry has to be viewed in the light of the abject poverty that is prevalent among communities surrounding the mines and in the light of income disparities in the industry. Critical interventions need to be made to transform the lives of miners, their labour-sending communities and the communities in the immediate surroundings of the mines. Many of the challenges in the mining industry would have been long resolved were it not for the reluctance of the mining bosses to execute the requirements of the charter, not the labour movement, hon Mncwango. The mining bosses need to rededicate themselves to implementing the charter, instead of investing their energies in undermining the established collective bargaining framework and protocols of the country. Let the mining bosses not offer and grant wage increases outside of the bargaining structures that are established through the collective bargaining system. Let us reflect briefly on what the Mining Charter seeks to achieve.
The Mining Charter is an important tool to effect transformation in the mining sector. Ten years ago, during this month, the charter was signed after consensus had been reached on its objectives. The objectives of the Mining Charter give expression to the equality aspirations which are enshrined in section 9(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996. They are enunciated in section 100(2) of the provisions of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.
The objectives of the charter may be summarised as follows: firstly, to promote equitable access to the nation's mineral resources for all people of South Africa; secondly, to meaningfully extend opportunities to the historically disadvantaged individuals including women in order to benefit from the mineral endowment of the country; thirdly, to leverage the existing skills base for the empowerment of the historically disadvantaged individuals; fourthly, to expand the skills base for the benefit of the communities; fifthly, to promote employment and improve socioeconomic conditions of mining communities and their major sending areas; and, lastly, to promote beneficiation.
The charter sets crucial goals for transformation. For example, it targets 26% black ownership of mining assets by 2014. As with all other tools of the democratic state which are aimed at improving the lives of the historically disadvantaged individuals, it is to be expected that the implementation of the Mining Charter will continue to meet with resistance. The resistance will take different forms at different stages of the development of the transformation trajectory. It may even take the form of mining bosses exploiting the current mining instability to undermine the objectives of the charter.
Perhaps, this could take the form of rolling back the gains of the strategic stakeholder partners in the transformation path by sponsoring the emergence of new role-players. In all of this, we should not be distracted from addressing the seriously inadequate conditions which persist in the mines. Certainly, we should resist attempts by all and sundry to now find a new-found zeal and commitment to be voluntary shop stewards of the workers, often to the detriment of the collective gains of the established bargaining processes of the country.
It is common knowledge that the living conditions of the mineworkers are far from adequate. Even in instances in which the workers could use their meagre living-out allowance to choose relatively better accommodation, they tend to spend the allowance as part of their overall income and instead swell the ranks of shack-dweller communities with those that are eligible to join the housing lists of the promised state-funded housing, such as Reconstruction and Development Programme, RDP, housing.
Closely related to this is the phenomenon of the skyrocketing debt of the workers which is largely brought about by the high interest-bearing loans from unregulated "skoparis" and "mashonisas" [moneylenders] whose practices heap misery on those they purport to help by, amongst other things, withholding the identity documents of the borrower employees.
The recent strikes have not helped the situation as the workers have further sunk into debt as a result of their not earning an income over a considerable period of time. All of these are manifestations of a deeper underlying problem, namely that the salaries of the mineworkers - they who are the backbone of our economy - require serious attention. Of course, this too is not the essence of the problem. We all know the self-feeding orientation of the capitalist system. The following is an illustration of the minimum wages in the mining sector by commodity, as well as the average wage gap between the mining chief executive officers, CEOs, and the mineworkers as at 2012.
I hope that you will listen very carefully. When mineworkers talk of a poverty wage, they mean exactly what we are going to demonstrate to you. In the gold sector, the average salary earnings is R4 222 a month; in the coal sector, the average earnings of a general worker is R4 852; in the diamond sector, the average earnings is R6 540; and in the platinum sector, the average earning is R5 396 per month. Therefore, that gives you the average industry earning levels at R5 252. Meanwhile, the average earnings level of CEOs is R20,183 433. [Interjections.]
It doesn't matter whether net or gross; you can look at the disparities that we are pointing out here. As a further illustration of this point, the Lonmin rock drill operator, after the negotiations, earns a mere R11 078 a month. This translates to R132 936 per annum compared - listen very carefully - to a whopping R17 million received by the CEO in the year 2011 only. We can further demonstrate to you that the CEO of Anglo American Platinum earned R21,5 million in 2011 - one year. The CEO of AngloGold Ashanti in 2011 earned R27,8 million, and Goldfields' CEO earned R37,7 million. This is seriously obscene. That's why even the Gini coefficient has proclaimed us to be the most unequal society when it comes to earning levels.
We will continue to work towards greater alignment between the departments which experience job leakages in intersector flows. In this regard, we will realise better articulation and strategy co-ordination between the Department of Mineral Resources and the Department of Trade and Industry. Equally, we will work towards coherent mineral governance between the various departments including the Departments of Mineral Resources, Trade and Industry, Public Enterprises, Science and Technology, and Economic Development. We will continue to explore existing best practices for effective, inclusive and accountable management of the procurement of mining rights. This will include consideration for professional granting, monitoring and evaluation of mineral concessions, which includes licensing. We will continue to conduct scientific research to assess the environmental impact of the prospecting operations.
In conclusion, we must commit to continually assessing the implementation of the charter, as we recently did. We must not hesitate to invoke the country's emerging policies, some of which I have cited above. We must insist on the full-scale implementation of the Mining Charter with consequences for noncompliance. We will invoke existing legislation to improve the conditions of miners, sending communities, as well as the South African community in general.
All these tools have the capacity to change course from the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment that we face in society in general and in the mining sector in particular. We will resist all attempts to be sidetracked by Johnny-come-lately, self-appointed spokespersons of the mineworkers of this country. We congratulate the labour unions, under the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers, NUM ... [Applause.] ... for having concluded a number of agreements with the Chamber of Mines that are aimed at adjusting the salaries of mineworkers and the reinstatement of the dismissed workers. We trust that these actions will bring about the necessary stability to the mining industry.
I think we must raise this in the House. Those who agree perhaps with what the hon Mncwango has raised here - that the unions are organisations that are self-centred that pursue their own narrow interests ... This is as a result of people who want to erase history; who have a short memory. If you understand where mineworkers come from ... during the dark days of apartheid even before the formation of the NUM, then you will know that they were treated more like dogs by the industry. They were not even paid starvation wages, but a slave's wages. Their conditions of employment were quite appalling, and the work of the unions, especially after the formation of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1982, resulted in their dignity being restored as human beings in this country. [Applause.]
We must say that we must not have a short memory; even today, the mineworkers are earning much better than other workers in other sectors - comparatively speaking, I must emphasise - as a result of the toiling work that has been undertaken by the trade unions that are operative in the mining industry and their federation, Cosatu. I thank you. [Applause.]