Parliament’s portfolio committee on mineral resources has resolved to urgently call the department and the police to come and account on what they have done to stamp out rampant illegal mining in Gauteng and North West provinces.
Committee chair Zet Luzipho on Tuesday said that the executive had to account on the steps it has taken to implement the recommendations in the report tabled by the committee to Parliament last year.
Luzipho said illegal mining activities had always been associated with peripheral violent crimes that were complicated to predict, such as rape, the terror of mining communities, stock theft, murder, damage to national infrastructure and social amenities, human trafficking, as well as the illicit trade of contraband goods.
He said though Parliament was currently on Constituency Period until the end of August, the urgency of the matter of illegal mining was that these departments should account by next week at least.
“All members are going to sign an application [because] we understand we are still in recess. We will state the urgency of the matter why we feel that we cannot wait until the 5th of September. This has to be attended to,” Luzipho said.
“I’m of the view that if the committee allows us, there were some of the issues that have financial implications, and we may have to consider down the line to what extent, if needs arises, do we invite the National Treasury to say what type of resources can be made available to deal with this scourge.
“There is a consensus that an urgent meeting must be convened, and the relevant departments must be invited. More work must be done in terms of consolidating the major contents of our recommendations, adopted unanimously by the National Assembly.”
This comes as more than 100 illegal miners were arrested in Riverlea and Matholesville, west of Johannesburg, following a community outcry of shoot-outs between rival illegal mining gangs who are mining at disused mines.
ANC MP Mikateko Mahlaule reiterated that the committee had presented a report of its oversight to the National Assembly, which was adopted with recommendations.
Mahlaule said among the recommendations was that the intelligence services must be seized with issues of illegal mining and how they deal with those that were in the value-chain or at the receiving end of the proceeds.
“We said the department must expedite seeing that artisanal mining is enabled so that we can differentiate who is an illegal miner and who is an artisanal miner without prejudicing those that are permitting to mine the leftovers that were lifted by big mines,” Mahlaule said.
“We also had recommended that the Department of Correctional Services, Police and Home Affairs must work together to ascertain that those who are undocumented illegal miners are deported or sent to jail.
“We also recommended that because illegal miners have far reaching criminal activities in our communities, we must be able to know what the police are doing to prevent crime between the time we went for oversight and presented a report and now that there is an outburst of criminal activity in illegal mining.”
Political parties and civil rights organisations have been vocal about lax regulations by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) for mining houses to properly close and rehabilitate old mines.
Last year, the DMRE estimated that the South African economy and the mining sector lost approximately R49 billion in 2019 to illegal mining, with a further R2bn spent by mining companies on security just to prevent these illicit activities.
The DMRE had also said then that it was engaging with the Ministry of Police to establish a specialised police unit with the ability to detect, combat and investigate these crimes.
DA MP James Robert Bourne Lorimer said in the committee’s report to Parliament that the police had identified six pieces of legislation that needed to be looked at or changed.
“The report says the following: the DMRE, as the main of the Acts listed above, is encouraged to process amendments and facilitate the introduction thereof in Parliament as a matter of urgency,” Lorimer said.
“I would like to know whether we can ask the DMRE to give us a progress report specifically on what they are doing to bring those legislative changes before us.”
EFF MP Phiwaba Madokwe said it was embarrassing for the government to always be caught off guard by illegal mining to such an extent that the only time that it feels that it’s supposed to respond is when a disaster happens.
“My understanding is that we have done oversights, we have submitted a report to Parliament, and Parliament adopted that report, which, therefore, means that where we are right now, we are supposed to be holding people accountable for the tasks they were given,” Madokwe said.
“What we should be discussing now is how are we holding the people that we give work to, and we gave recommendations to, accountable because there is nothing that is going to assist to resolve the issue of illegal mining if all we do is write reports or set meetings to discuss things that people seemingly are not interested in addressing up until another disaster happens.”
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