Roundup: S. African controversial mining amendment bill expected to worsen uncertainty: opponents

The Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment (MPRDA) Bill will worsen uncertainty in the mining sector by putting massive power in the Mineral Resources Minister's hands, opponents said on Tuesday.

The bill will open the door to corruption, allowing the Mineral Resources Minister to hand out mining rights to friends, cronies or the highest bidder, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said.

This came after the National Assembly adopted the amendments to bill and referred it to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for consideration.

Following deliberations on the amendments to the bill, 198 members of Parliament voted in favour of the amendments, while 81 voted against the amendment, with one abstention.

Parliament passed the bill two and a half years ago, but President Jacob Zuma refused to sign it into law and returned it to Parliament for reconsideration early this year to ascertain if it would pass Constitutional muster.

Under the bill, up to 20 percent interest in any such venture should go to the state and a portion of the extracted resource would have to be processed domestically instead of exported in raw form.

The bill also allows the state to buy a further percentage at a fair market price.

On a debate on the bill in Parliament on Tuesday, Minister of Mineral Resources Mosebenzi Zwane said the resolutions herein tabled for debate ought not to be seen as being contrary to the basis of the referral of the bill, but more of the re-affirmation to the president that legislators have satisfied themselves that indeed the bill will now pass the constitutional muster.

"We are acutely conscious of the fact that people elect public representatives to make laws to foster development, ensure that jobs are created, and see that services such as education, health and welfare are rendered to the country in an environmentally sustainable manner," Zwane said.

He called on all members of the House to support the position that the government has taken on this matter of national interest.

"We have to use our collective might to deal with this subject in a manner that ensures that we take steps to re-industrialize our country, diversify our energy mix, contribute to food security and strengthen the national fiscus," the minister said.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC), which controls Parliament, has been pressing for the passage of the bill in the hope that the bill would return the control of South Africa's natural resources to the disenfranchised and previously disadvantaged.

The ANC also argues that the bill would put greater responsibilities on mining and related companies to take localized beneficiation a lot more seriously.

"The whole idea that government can limit mineral exports and force beneficiation through cheap local prices is unsound. It doesn't work. The World Bank has warned about this. However, the ANC ignores that advice," DA's Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources, James Lorimer said.

This new bill will give even more power to the Mineral Resources Minister to select who gets licences, Lorimer claimed.

This bill could be fixed, or better still, scrapped and rewritten so that it drops forced beneficiation, provides certainty through legislation rather than regulation, pays more attention to including communities and brings about a transparent, fair licensing process, he said. Enditem