Four cases of the double awarding of mineral rights were due for litigation following the lifting of a nine-month moratorium on applications for prospecting and mining rights, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said yesterday.
Shabangu and her director-general, Sandile Nogxina, both declined to name the companies involved in these cases, saying that this would affect share prices.
Shabangu said the Department of Mineral Resources would try to resolve the cases internally or would reach a compromise with the concerned companies.
It is unclear how many firms are involved in these cases.
Announcing the lifting of the moratorium yesterday, Shabangu said an internal audit of rights had discovered 120 cases of double awards out of the 26 000 applications that had been received since the promulgation of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act in 2002.
Of the 120 cases, she said, 11 were of a complex nature and four were subject to litigation and were thus sub judice.
The moratorium was placed after noticable cases including: Keysha Investment 220, which was awarded prospecting rights last year over part of Marikana, a platinum mine owned by Lonmin in the North West. A prospecting right was also issued to Imperial Crown Trading (ICT), a hithertho unknown entity, over part of Kumba Iron Ore’s Sishen mine.
Shabangu said the department had issued 713 statutory notices to non-compliant right holders in terms of section 93 of the act. Mining firms were in some instances not complying with the approved environmental management plans or they were not adhering to the conditions that informed the department when it granted the rights in the first place.
The scope of the audit looked at compliance with prospecting and mining works programmes, environmental management programmes and black empowerment rules.
Shabangu instated the moratorium in August last year to determine the effectiveness of the department’s administrative processes. It was to have been lifted in February, but was postponed twice as the department said it was still dealing with challenges. These included floods, which prevented officials from inspecting certain areas. In Mpumalanga the moratorium will remain in place until September.
Shabangu said she was deeply concerned about black empowerment participants in the industry who did not pitch up during the audits.
“The objective of transforming the sector will take a while. It’s a setback to call people and they do not pitch,”she said.
During the moratorium, audits were conducted of all prospecting rights that were issued since the implementation of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.
Shabangu said the department had planned to conduct 3 507 inspections, but 3 266 were completed during the moratorium period. The remainder could not be conducted as the right holders could not be traced after companies were liquidated, deregistered, or right holders had either changed their details and were untraceable, were deceased or had left the country.
She was confident that the country had installed a better system and that South Africa was ready for business. - Business Report
