Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources, hon Members of Parliament, the 1955 Freedom Charter states that -
The people shall share in the country's wealth.
An ANC government shall restore the wealth of our country, the heritage of all South Africans, to the people as a whole. The Freedom Charter foes on to say:
The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and the monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole.
The 1969 ANC Morogoro Consultative Conference agreed with the wisdom of the Freedom Charter, stating that -
At the moment, there are vast monopolies whose existence affects the livelihood of large numbers of our people and whose ownership is in the hands of Europeans only. It is necessary for monopolies which vitally affect the wellbeing of our people, such as the mines, the sugar and wine industry, to be transferred to public ownership so that they can be used to uplift the life of all the people.
The point of this reference is to demonstrate that the inequities in our society have long been identified as curable only through dealing with the imbalances. Socioeconomic inequalities that bedevil our beloved country are not products of imbalances in the sociopolitical rights; they are not a product of some idealistic notion of bad faith or deficient political will.
The truth of the matter is that the majority of South Africans are trapped in the quagmire of poverty because of lopsided production relations in this country: Few people own the means of production whilst many relate to production if and when selling their own labour at a cost determined by the owners of the means of production.
May I remind the hon members that our Constitution not only enjoins us to heal the divisions of the past, but also renders peremptory the achievement of equality. Equality is not only about inherent human dignity and the entrenched right not to be unfairly discriminated against. Equality is mainly about equal access not only to opportunities but to resources. Such equality has to be based on positive discrimination to ensure that the ownership of the means of production in general and mines in particular rests with the majority of our people.
Modulasetulo, maikemi?et?o a mmu?o wa kgatelelo e be e le go amoga motho botho, naga ya gabo le maatla a taolo dilong t?eo e lego t?a gabo le go mo t?eela naga le diminerale gore a phele ka bodiidi. Maikemi?et?o e be e le gore motho moso a hloke mo?omo le bokgoni bja go tsena mo?omong le gore motho wa go se kgone go itirela a se ikhumanele bophelo bjo botse. Godimo ga mo, mokgwa wo o be o dira gore motho yo a ?omago a ?omi?e t?helete ye nt?i go fihla mo?omong wa gagwe. Mohlala, batho ba be ba lahlet?we kgole le toropo moo le pula e sa nego.
Dimaene e be ele t?ona dikokwane t?a ekonomi ya Afrika-Borwa, ebile e sa le t?ona dikokwane t?a ekonomi. Efela bothata ke gore diminerale ka bophara di romelwa ka ntle ga naga go fetolwa gore e be di?omi?wa, gomme se se hlola me?omo bathong ba dinaga t?e dingwe. Batho baso ga se ba hlwe ba humana puno ya diminerale t?a dinaga t?a gabobona, kudu bao ba dulago dinagamagae moo diminerale di t?wago gona. Re ile Ga-Sekhukhune gomme re di bone. Batho ga ba ?ome gomme maphelo a bona a maemong a fase kudu. Ka lebaka la le?ata, phi?o le lerole, go t?wa kotsi go maemong a godimo kudu me?omong. Madulo a ba?omi a maemong ao a hlobaet?ago. Ka lebaka la gore lehumo le laolwa kudu ke banna ba mohlobo o tee, go a thatafala go bao ba lekago go tsena mo?omong la mathomo ka ge bao ba tsenego pele ba le maemong a godimodimo.
Le ge go le bjalo, selo se tee seo se sa fetogego ke phetogo ka boyona. Re t?eere sephetho sa gore go gola ga ekonomi go swanet?e go t?ee lemanoga le leswa. Se se ra gore batho ba re ilego ra ba etela, go swana le ba profense ya Limpopo, ba ka kgona go holega ba t?wa ka gare ga bodiidi. Ge ba t?wele ka gare ga bodiidi, ba ka se sa loma ke dit?hit?hidi t?a go hlola ke tlala.
Ba Kgoro ya Methopo ya Diminerale ba swanet?e go tii?a letsogo go bona gore diphetogo di ba gona - kudu t?a taolo ya moruo - kgahlanong le taolo ka mmala gore batho ka moka ba kgone go tsena taolong ya dimaene. Go swanet?e go kwagale gore taolo ya sehlophana se it?ego seo se sa akaret?ego batho ka moka, e swanet?e go akaret?a phatlalat?o ya mahumo bathong ka moka. (Translation of Sepedi paragraphs follows.)
[Chairperson, the aim of the apartheid government was to take away a person's humanity, his country, the minerals and control over his resources so that he lived in poverty. It aimed at making it impossible for an African man to get a job and skills that are needed in the work environment and also to make life difficult for him. Those who were employed were made to spend a lot of money to get to their work. For example, people were placed far from the town, where the land is dry.
The mines were the wellsprings of the South African economy and they are still the wellsprings of the economy even today. The minerals are exported to other countries where they are turned into products and this creates jobs for people in those countries. Black people have not yet benefited from the local minerals, especially the people from rural areas where these minerals are mined. We went to Ga-Sekhukhune and we saw that. People are not employed and as a result their standard of living is low. The lives of those who are employed are also at risk because of the level of noise, heat and dust. The homes of employees are also in a very bad condition because the wealth is controlled by one racial group. It is very difficult for people who are entering the work environment for the first time because experienced employees are occupying senior positions.
Things are going to change. We have decided that there has to be a change in economic growth. This means that the people we visited, like those in Limpopo, can get out of poverty. That way they can live a comfortable life.
The Department of Mineral Resources has to advance transformation - especially in the management of the economy - across the colour line so that all the people become involved in the management of the mines. The minority group that is managing the economy has to disseminate the wealth to all the people.]
We therefore commend the department for the successful launch of the state- owned mining company. We are convinced that the state-owned mining company will, inter alia, increase national income from the mining and minerals sector; advance and deepen broad-based transformation of the mining and minerals sector; advance job creation; change community development projects for poverty alleviation and rural development; invest in beneficiation and mineral-based industrialisation and ensure competitive pricing of inputs downstream; ensure value addition in manufacturing; and improve working conditions for mineworkers at all income levels.
It is common cause that our labour market does not produce enough skills required by the mining industry and therefore we need to rally all stakeholders behind what the Mining Charter provides for. The charter indicates that the skills deficit has to be addressed, inter alia, by interfacing with educational authorities and providing scholarships to promote mining-related educational advancement.
This would be especially the case in the fields of mathematics and science at the school level and will ensure that provision of scholarships and the number of registered learnerships in the mining industry increase.
The department needs to make sure that, as per their commitment, South African subsidiaries of multinational companies and South African companies, where possible, will focus their overseas placement and/or training programmes on historically disadvantaged South Africans; that a talent pool will be identified and fast-tracked; and that higher levels of inclusiveness and advancement of women will be ensured.
The establishment of measures to improve the standard of housing - including the upgrading of hostels, conversion of hostels to family units and the promotion of homeownership options for mine employees - and the establishment of measures to improve the nutrition of mine employees should be fast-tracked.
The department should make sure that stakeholders give historically disadvantaged South Africans a preferred supplier status, where possible, in capital goods, services and consumables.
In conclusion, South Africa is one of the world's richest countries in terms of minerals. Up to now, however, this enormous wealth has only been used to benefit a tiny white minority. Our principal objective is to transform mining and mineral-processing industries to serve all our people. We can achieve this goal through a variety of government interventions, incentives and disincentives.
The mining industry played no small role in the present structural inequalities and exclusions that we inherited from our unfortunate history. We have an economy characterised by a systemic exclusion of blacks from ownership of the means of production and thus from the ability to accumulate wealth; the concentration of resources and wealth in the hands of a minority, ensuring that blacks become the mere purveyors of cheap labour; and the relegation of rural areas into reservoirs of cheap labour, with the resultant underdevelopment.
It is this history that informs and necessitates the reform of the mining industry as led by our developmental state through the Department of Mineral Resources. We are convinced the department is on the right track in the transformation of the mining sector and we thus support the budget that will enable such transformation. Thank you.