In 2007, mining contributed R135,6 billion ($19,2 billion) or 7,7 percent to the Gross Domestic Product, an increase of R16,2 billion over the previous year. Mining and quarrying contributed 8,9 percent to Total Fixed Capital Formation. South Africa’s total primary mineral sales revenue increased by 15,2 percent to R223,9 billion in 2007. When the total sales and export sales are expressed in US dollars, the annual increases were 10,5 percent (from $28,7 billion to $ 31,7 billion), and 10,6 percent (from $20,7 billion to $22,9 billion) respectively. The major foreign revenue earners in 2007 were platinum group metals (40,8 percent), followed by gold (22,2 percent) and coal (15,1 percent).
The ANCYL further stated that their perspective on the Nationalisation of the Mines is understood within the context of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), which seeks to resolve the national, gender and class contradictions through the creation of a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa, and emancipation of the black majority and Africans in particular. The emancipation of the African majority fundamentally means that they should be capable and empowered to be at the cutting edge and control of the development of the national forces of production. The most direct route through which this can be achieved, within the framework of deepening nation-building and maintaining the unity of the motive forces of our revolution, is through democratic state ownership and control of the strategic sectors of the South African economy.
Julius Malema, who is the President of the ANCYL was criticized by those opposed to this move. They claimed that his view on the country's state of resources was uneducated and did contain economic intelligence. We saw articles by media with horrific headlines about this young man. Most of these articles did not really debate his nationalisation agenda but they attacked his person and called him names. These attacks raised serious questions about who controls media. It became very clear that media was being used by those who controlled mineral resources of this country to attack and destroy the character of Malema.
South Africans remained divided on this matter as academics and the so called intellectuals claimed that they were the only ones who could debate this issue. These intellectuals claimed that ordinary citizens of this country were not interested on the nationalisation of mines. They maintained this view despite the fact that Google reports had shown that more than 3 million people Google information about mining in South Africa. These Google search are generated across the globe. In SA alone, about 12 000 people Google mining information on monthly bases. Now why did intellectuals claim that there was no local interest in mining? No one knows.
The ministry of Minerals Resources was caught with its pants down on this subject. The Minister in the department was quoted having said that nationalisation would not happen during her lifetime. She later published a statement claiming that the department was to conduct investigations on mineral rights to see who holds mining licenses.
On her statement published on 16th of November, she admitted that there were many ghost license holders of mining rights in SA. She further admitted that her department had conducted physical inspections and very few companies pitched to confirm that they are the owners of license. She also said that the whole process of mining rights was characterised by fraud. This is a clear indication that the ANCYL was to some degree correct in its statements that there was something not right about the ownership of natural resources in this country. What do we do next remains a question to be answered by the so called intellectuals I guess?
Article Source: Scelo Mncwango
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