The dysfunction at the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), which has potentially choked untold billions of potential investment into the mining sector, has long been apparent. Its Samrad system for logging applications for various mining rights is a disaster, with a backlog that stood at over 5,000 almost two years ago. The department has since provided scant information on the situation, leaving investors and the broader public in the dark. 

There was a period last year when the department could not even deliver monthly mining production and sales data on time to Statistics South Africa. And there are reports from the industry of piles of documents accumulating in dusty rooms in provincial offices of the department. 

A damning report from the Auditor-General found the DMRE has been mismanaging its responsibilities for the rehabilitation of the derelict and ownerless mines that scar much of South Africa’s landscape, posing serious health and environmental risks to mostly poor communities. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: “DMRE’s failure to rehabilitate abandoned mines poses health risks to communities“

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Stats SA unable to publish June mining data due to energy department’s capacity woes”

Emails to departmental officials occasionally bounce back and some staff seem to prefer using Gmail accounts for official correspondence. And Minister Gwede Mantashe’s office cannot seem to get basic things, like his scheduling, right. His failure to address the Joburg Mining Indaba by video link last week from Cape Town is a case in point. 

Why Mantashe’s decision to snub the Joburg Mining Indaba is significant

Lo and behold, there is a flicker of light at the end of this tunnel, which perhaps reveals the essence of the problem. It seems the department’s data and phone networks have become archaic relics of the technical past – sort of like the fossil fuels the minister keeps punting. And so, unsurprisingly, they appear to be on the verge of collapse.

At least that is what a tender document on the department’s website – which amazingly seems to be functioning – strongly suggests.  

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The tender calls for interested parties to bid for the job of providing an assessment of the DMRE’s data and phone networks. The document spells out the alarming facts that its systems are so obsolete that it can no longer source spare parts and that it has not had managed services for almost a decade. (You can see the document laying out the background here.) Bids needed to be submitted by mid August.

The tender says: “The objective of this project is to conduct ICT [information and communications technology] infrastructure assessment, costing and recommendation services.” 

It’s certainly due for an assessment. Under the heading “BACKGROUND”, the tender lays bare some of the details of this trying technical tangle:

“The current DMR (sic) Data and telephone infrastructure is running on the 3COM Technology Telephone (VCX, Gateway and 3COM switches) and Data (Dell, EMC storage and HP). The current virtualization software is VMware and hyper visor for other regional branches,” it says. 

“The infrastructure is out of warranty and has reached the end of life, which means that the spares equipment’s (sic) are no longer available in the market and support is limited from the vendors/suppliers. The hardware has completed eight-year lifespan and the managed services has (sic) lapsed in March 2013. The Department require (sic) a service provider that will conduct infrastructure assessment (Hardware and Software),” it says. 

Imagine Oom Koos in his garage in the Karoo peering under the hood of some jalopy that last had an oil change in the early years of the Zuma presidency, and you kind of get the picture. The hardware’s lifespan is well over, the service provider stopped providing services almost a decade ago, and there are no spare parts left because technology has moved on. 

This of course raises all kinds of questions, while possibly explaining a few things. 

For starters, why is the issue only being addressed now? What have successive directors-general been doing in the face of such an obvious problem? Did the issue only come to light when the online solitaire games started packing up, or someone’s phone stopped ringing?

It also raises questions about the shambles that is Samrad. Does this explain why that system is such a train wreck? It certainly provides some context to its ongoing failures. Who knows, maybe it also explains why the minister punted a fake mineral at an Australian mining conference three years ago.  Perhaps the DMRE fact-checkers couldn’t log on to Google. 

One silver lining may be that the network is so ancient that it can’t be hacked. 

The DMRE media desk did not respond to queries on the matter by the time we went to press. 

This communications calamity is unfolding against the backdrop of growing industry frustration at the DMRE’s failure to replace Samrad with a functional mining cadastre. 

This is an online portal that is open to the public, providing comprehensive geological data about a country or mining jurisdiction, information on mining permits that have been issued, including expiry dates, and listing available mining or prospecting rights and so on. It does seem that transparency is not something the DMRE is thrilled about, as there are widespread suspicions that the application process is riven by corruption and incompetence. 

The department is transparently acting like it has something to hide. 

The industry has offered to help pay for a cadastre system and there are off-the-shelf options, yet the DMRE seems intent on reinventing the wheel. But given its technical track record as revealed by this tender, there is just no way it could manage such a complex system. A TV remote almost seems beyond its capabilities.

In the latest pledge, Director-General Jacob Mbele made a commitment on Tuesday to the parliamentary portfolio committee that a cadastre would be procured by the end of the financial year and that a team was visiting Namibia and Botswana to look at their systems, according to DA MP James Lorimer.

And while these endless delays have dragged on, mining applications remain snarled up, thwarting the investment in exploration that is required for the sector to have a future. It all adds up to the mounting costs of state failure. 

This is a tender to keep an eye on, because the vibes from this digital disgrace are not good. BM/DM