Johannesburg - A month after the Economic Freedom Front (EFF) marched to the headquarters of the Chamber of Mines, the business organisation has said it will welcome the opportunity to meet directly with the leadership of the left-wing party.
“While marches and memoranda play an important role in the life of any democracy, real change can only come when there is proper direct engagement on specifics,” said a response on the chamber’s website, posted last week by the president Mike Teke and chief executive Roger Baxter.
On October 27, the chamber in the Johannesburg CBD was a “recipient” of the EFF mass action in the form of a march by thousands of members, who also proceeded to the JSE in Sandton.
A memorandum handed over by the EFF to the chamber said the business body was targeted because of its role in the history of racialised economic development in South Africa.
“This includes, but is not limited, to the development of an exclusively white mining capital, with massive influence and contribution to legislation that subjugated, excluded, oppressed and super-exploited blacks and Africans in the entire mining value.”
The EFF’s memorandum went on to call for the nationalisation of mines, with the state owning and controlling a minimum of 60 percent of South Africa’s mines without compensation. The memorandum also called for a minimum wage of R12 500 and full employment for workers currently employed as contract workers.
In its response to the EFF, the chamber said mining companies had made significant strides in their contribution to improving the lives of their employees, their families, communities living around the mines and the wider population. “This is in addition to the crucial contribution that the industry has made to the South African economy.”
Teke and Baxter said much of the country’s economic infrastructure was based on the mining sector, the industry’s supply chain and the beneficiation of the minerals mined.
“In acknowledgement of the negative aspects of the mining sector’s role in South Africa’s history, the Chamber of Mines and its members have since 1994 made concerted efforts to repair and compensate for damage done as far as is practically possible. We know that it is necessary both to sustain and grow the industry and to make good the effects of historical discrimination and inequality.”
They said this was a process that continued.
The chamber said notwithstanding widespread allegations to the contrary, the industry continued to pay all taxes and other state revenues due.
Teke and Baxter said the industry was of one of the largest contributors to capital investment in the country, having invested between R60 billion and R70bn on capital per annum in the past decade.
BUSINESS REPORT