SA mining sector gatvol with DMPR over endless cadastre delay

“Frustrated” is how Minerals Council CEO Mzila Mthenjane described the South African mining sector’s view about the endless delays in the roll-out of a functional mining cadastre.

“Concerned” is the diplomatic term used by the Minerals Council president and Northam Platinum CEO Paul Dunne.

Both executives spoke to Daily Maverick after the annual Minerals Council AGM on Wednesday, which represents companies that account for about 90% of South Africa’s mining production.

In short, they are gatvol with the Department of Minerals and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) and its endless delays and excuses over the launch of the cadastre, which its minister and ANC heavyweight Gwede Mantashe has promised for years is just around the corner.

The Minerals Council needs to show restraint in its tone as talks with the DMPR remain at a sensitive stage over amendments to the draft Mineral Resources Development (MRD) Bill, which are also moving at a geological pace.

A high price

But the waning of its patience is transparent. These critical issues are now like a broken record at Minerals Council AGMs, and South Africa’s economy is paying a high price as the DJ dithers in terms of lost investment and jobs that could have been created.

To wit, the lack of a proper cadastre – an online portal that displays a country’s mineral wealth while allowing companies to seamlessly apply for mining and prospecting rights – has long been a deterrent to mining investment, leading to massive application backlogs and suspicions of corruption at regional offices of the DMPR.

It’s a key reason why South Africa now attracts less than 1% of global mining exploration spend compared with more than 5% two decades ago.

Regular Daily Maverick readers will also note that this correspondent can sound like a broken record on this vexed issue. But the DMPR remains revealingly tone deaf on this score.

FROM OUR ARCHIVE

Explainer: A mining cadastre and public transparency

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Job creation doldrums

“Government has spoken over and over again about the need for job creation ... But the mining industry is not coming into focus as a sector that can create employment across a spectrum of skills,” Mzila told Daily Maverick.

“The cadastre is low-hanging fruit in terms of providing access to South Africa’s minerals endowment in a way that is transparent, that leads to capital investment. We are frustrated in that we know what the potential of the mining industry is. And it’s important that we see the government expressing the same level of frustration.”

Which, in the case of the DMPR, it is pointedly not.

For the sake of the (broken) record, Mantashe told the Joburg Mining Indaba in October 2024 that the cadastre would be up and running by June 2025 – so, a year ago. But it remains missing in action.

FOR CONTEXT

Loaded for Bear: Mantashe’s mining cadastre is rolling out at a geological pace

July 9, 2025

Then there are the constantly changing regulatory goalposts that never seem to be finally embedded into the pitch to provide certainty for investors and the wider South African public, which has a clear stake in the country’s rich mineral endowment.

That has been the case since the Mining Charter was enacted in 2004.

“Mining’s contribution to GDP in 2025 was 6.2%, virtually flat compared to 6.3% when the Act was gazetted in 2004. Simply put, South African mining is not – and has not been – growing in any meaningful way,” Dunne said in his prepared remarks to the media after the AGM.

Paths to uncertainty

He went on to relate the many paths that have been trodden since, all of which have led to a tangled web of policy uncertainty.

“In 2013, a Bill to amend the Act spent more than 2,000 days in various proceedings before Minister Mantashe scrapped it when he took office in 2018,” he said.

“Coupled with the uncertainty caused by the previous Bill, there have been four versions of the Mining Charter... each set revised targets or developed new ones, never providing our sector with the long-term certainty necessary.”

And so here we are, with a new Bill still brewing and a cadastre that always seems to remain in the future. The Minerals Council is seeking an “engagement” with the DMPR about the cadastre, and that might shine some light on the issue.

Such issues have a renewed urgency at this stage of the 21st century, when there is a scramble for “critical minerals”, and the forces of mechanisation, automation and AI threaten to potentially sweep away many of the jobs that now exist in South Africa’s mining and other industries.

With an unemployment rate of almost 33%, a slow-growth economy and surging inflation triggered by the Iran conflict, South Africa needs every job and investment it can get.

Unlike the apartheid past, mining jobs now are relatively well paid and the skills required are rising. There is a reason why labour unrest has been muted in recent years.

South Africa needs to grab this low-hanging fruit now, while it is there for the picking. DM