Seamlessly integrate job creation with your SLP and ESG strategies and/or gain up to two levels up on your B-BBEE scorecard.
Join over 2,200 companies who have committed to co-creating a future that works for all.
#SayYES
ESG (environmental, social and governance) strategies and reporting have become more and more important for investors and customers alike. The advent of ESG investment indices has shown that those buying both stocks and/or products care about a business’ external environmental and socio-economic impact, as well as internal governance structures that affect people, planet and processes.
ESG (environmental, social and governance) strategies and reporting have become more and more important for investors and customers alike. The advent of ESG investment indices has shown that those buying both stocks and/or products care about a business’ external environmental and socio-economic impact, as well as internal governance structures that affect people, planet and processes.
YES is a business driven not-for-profit that works with the private sector to tackle the youth unemployment crisis by creating work opportunities for young South Africans.
YES is a business driven not-for-profit that works with the private sector to tackle the youth unemployment crisis by creating work opportunities for young South Africans.
YES approaches the private sector to create these opportunities, and in return, they receive up to two levels on their B-BBEE scorecard and can integrate the creation of youth jobs with their ESG strategies. Businesses can also claim enterprise development and or socioeconomic development points by investing in YES Hubs.
YES approaches the private sector to create these opportunities, and in return, they receive up to two levels on their B-BBEE scorecard and can integrate the creation of youth jobs with their ESG strategies. Businesses can also claim enterprise development and or socioeconomic development points by investing in YES Hubs.
Since being founded almost four years ago, YES has worked with over 2,200 companies to create more than 98,000 work experiences, all with no state funding. This has seen R5.5 billion injected into communities and the economy through YES Youth salaries alone.
Since being founded three and a half years ago, YES has worked with over 2,200 companies to create more than 93,000 work experiences, all with no state funding. This has seen R4.9 billion injected into communities and the economy through YES Youth salaries alone.
The YES turnkey solution works with 33 YESvetted host partners across the country to allow mining and resource companies (and other industries) an affordable way to create broad-based impact through uplifting communities outside of their sectors. YES host partners work in high-impact sectors such as healthcare, education, digital, early childhood development, and conservation where youth live, meaning young people can play an important part in building their own communities.
The YES turnkey solution works with 33 YESvetted host partners across the country to allow mining and resource companies (and other industries) an affordable way to create broad-based impact through uplifting communities outside of their sectors. YES host partners work in high-impact sectors such as healthcare, education, digital, early childhood development, and conservation where youth live, meaning young people can play an important part in building their own communities.
Your business can create critical youth jobs in sectors that reflect your ESG strategies.
Your business can create critical youth jobs in sectors that reflect your ESG strategies.
Contact:
Tel: 087 330 0084
Contact: Tel: 087 330 0084
Email: corporatesupport@yes4youth.co.za
Email: corporatesupport@yes4youth.co.za
www.yes4youth.co.za
www.yes4youth.co.za
MMTI is exceptionally proud to operate as one of South Africa's leading partners in accredited industryfocussed Training Programmes.
We are conveniently located in Gauteng, Brits, Middelburg, Nelspruit, Kathu and Steelpoort.
Our dynamic training facilities are equipped with all of the necessary equipment and machinery which our team of training-specialists rely on to efficiently and effectively train and upskill your organisation's Apprentices, Workers and Managers.
All of our training courses and programmes are professionally completed according to the standards and prescriptions of the South African Mining Sector, as well as to the standards of the Chemical and Metal processing and Manufacturing processes.
OUR TEAM AND TRAINING FACILITIES:
The MMTi Team is empowered by a number of highly skilled Training Officers who facilitate and present an exceptional training experience in each of our courses.
We have placed important emphasis on maintaining an efficient facilitator-tolearner ratio, thus, ensuring that each learner benefits from personalised attention and care throughout the full duration of our training courses.
We have lecture rooms that are available on site, as well as practical training areas and equipment which ensures that every courses offers a comprehensive training experience. However, one of the many advantages of our Training is that it need not be bound to our premises. As such, training can be arranged to take place at your company's premises, too.
MMTI is BBBEE and ISO 9001 Certificated company. All our Training Programmes are flexible and can be adjusted to suit your organisation's specific requirements. In cases where training is required in special fields or areas falling outside of our own expertise, our reliable team will arrange this for you at specialised institutions as a value-added service to your company.
WE OFFER CERTIFIED TRAINING COURSES IN:
Mining, Trackless Mobile Machinery, Adult Education and Training, Lifting Operator Training, Mineral Processing, Metals Production, Health and Safety, Pulp and Paper,
SAFETY TRAINING SHORT COURSES:
First Aid, Fire Fighting, Health and Safety, HIRA, Incident investigation, Legal Liability, MQA Safety Rep, Mine Health and Safety Act and Occupational Health and Safety Act.
UNDERGROUND AND SURFACE MINING TRAINING COURSES:
Skills Programmes relating to blasting, loading, hauling, ventilation, ore removal, waste management, etc. Small Scale Mining, Hard Rock Underground (NQF 2, 4 & 4) and Rock Breaking Surface Excavations (NQF 3).
ENGINEERING TRAINING COURSES:
Mechanical Fitter, Fitter and Turner, Welder, Electrician, Millwright, Structural Plater, Boilermaker, Diesel Mechanic and others.
TRACKLESS MOBILE MACHINERY:
We offer a range of courses in the operation of Trackless Mobile Machinery, specifically relating to Surface and Underground TMM Operator Licences and TMM Safety Training.
METALS PRODUCTION AND MINERAL PROCESSING TRAINING:
Extracting, melting, refining, casting and other metallurgical processes like operating a furnace, casting machine, converter or kiln. Mineral Processing (NQF 2, 3 & 4) and various Skills Programmes in Mineral Processing.
LIFTING OPERATOR TRAINING (LOPT):
Forklifts, Truck Mounted Cranes, Cab Controlled Overhead Cranes, Pendent Controlled Overhead Cranes and more!
Brits, Middelburg, Nelspruit, Steelpoort, Kathu, Gauteng.
Hello to you too and thank you for the opportunity to share. Transnet Pipelines is an operating division of Transnet and owns, manages, and controls South Africa’s petroleum and gas pipeline system. We maintain and operate the largest multi-product pipeline in Southern Africa, with our primary strategic mandate being to ensure security of supply for the inland market. On average we transport approximately 17 billion litres of product per annum which includes crude oil, diesel, petrol, jet fuel and methane rich gas through the 3114km pipeline network. We appreciate this opportunity to talk about Transnet Pipelines and the key role we play in South Africa’s economy.
We have more than 55 years’ experience in moving petroleum products through a pipeline system, but more importantly, Transnet, in 2012 brought into operation a
new multi-product pipeline to move petrol, diesel and jet fuel from Durban to Gauteng replacing what was then an ageing pipeline. What we have now is world-class infrastructure and cutting-edge technology in terms of concept, design and implementation. The new pipeline was designed to have a life cycle spanning over 70 years, so we are capable of meeting customer demands for the foreseeable future. In short, the pipeline infrastructure is both good and reliable, plus it is a key contributor to economic development and it is also a very efficient mode of transport. Without our pipelines, South Africa would have an additional 1000 tankers on our roads every day between Durban and Gauteng to meet the inland demand. It is unimaginable to think of the congestion, environmental damage, and road degradation these vehicles would cause. As a matter of fact, our pipeline network is one of South Africa’s greatest assets and something we should all be very proud of.
Actually yes, there is something we are very concerned about, and all of South Africa should be equally concerned. In the last three years our pipelines have been plagued by vandalism and theft. Since 2019, we have lost over 31million litres of fuel with a retail value of approximately R800million. In addition to the economic costs there are also the environmental costs, as a result of damage to the surrounding environment due to spillages caused by the thieves. Transnet Pipelines is obligated by law to rehabilitate this contaminated land, and this is costing the company billions of Rands. Worse still, five people have died – in the one instance it was the perpetrator as well as two innocent people in an adjacent house when a spark caused an explosion. We have implemented various security measures, which include frequent helicopter and drone inspections as well as regular foot patrols along all the pipeline routes. We are also part of a multi-disciplinary task team consisting of the SAPS, DPCI, and the Hawks, as well as the private security service appointed by TPL, Bidvest Protea Coin Security. In addition, we have formed strong relationships with the communities and farmers along the servitudes; but the theft continues. Although we are having some success in arresting perpetrators, we need more assistance from all relevant agencies as well as the public at large if we want to eliminate this onslaught on this essential infrastructure. Our mandate of ensuring the security of supply to the inland market, as well as reducing the cost of doing business in our country, is threatened by these criminal acts, and all South Africans can contribute towards achieving this objective. It is therefore imperative that pipeline tampering, vandalism and theft is reported immediately. Equally important is to reiterate that those who are buying stolen fuel from criminal sources are as guilty and must also be reported and stopped. If we
do not stop these illegal and highly dangerous activities, we could further damage the environment as well as risk the lives of innocent people living adjacent to our pipelines. We must not allow these thieves and organised crime syndicates to bring our country to a standstill.
Despite this, I am pleased to note that we have delivered all orders placed, because as we like to say; ‘we keep Gauteng wet.’
One of our core strategic objectives is to transition into the cleaner fuels space and we are doing quite a lot of work on the transition strategy into Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) and then hydrogen. Transnet Pipelines is ideally positioned as an enabler in delivering the LNG Strategy, which is aligned to the country’s energy requirements.
It’s good to know that the future looks bright for Transnet Pipelines. A final comment?
I am very proud of what we have and what we do, and don’t want to have this compromised. Our pipelines are an extremely important and efficient solution in the supply chain for South Africa’s fuel needs, and will continue to remain good, reliable and safe, unless interfered with. The product we transport up to the industrial heartland fuels our economy; you could think of us as the arteries that help give life to the people of our country; so, everyone should know of, and care for, what is essentially their pipeline. All help in the matter of combatting vandalism and theft is much appreciated. Thank you.
Pipelines are safe when not tampered with. Due to the risk of tampering with the high-pressure petroleum pipelines, vandalism and theft incidents can result in fire, burns or death.
Report any suspicious activity near our Pipelines, call our toll-free number 0800 203 843 or 031-361 1500 anonymously.
12
Luxury guest villas
WHERE KINGS AND OIL BILLIONAIRES COME TO STAY
30 TRANSPORT
CRIMINALS ARE KILLING SOUTH AFRICA’S VITAL TRANSPORT SECTOR
42 INVESTMENT
THE SATISFYING AND REWARDING ART OF INVESTING IN ART
56 POLITICS
WILL PRESIDENT CYRIL RAMAPHOSA WIN A SECOND TERM? MOSES MUDZWITI SHARES HIS THOUGHTS
61 ECONOMY
LESSONS FROM SAUDI ARABIA FOR SOUTH AFRICA
PUBLISHER TTL Media www.forerunner.co.za
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WE FIX, REPAIR AND DO THE FITMENT OF
• Repairs in Hydraulic Systems on tippers, cranes, hydraulic tanks, etc.
• Hydraulic Systems installations
Hose & Fittings: hydraulic hose, hose fittings, quick couplers, adaptors, stainless steel hose connectors, steel & brass fittings Rotary
Units Tubing: steel tubing, seamless tubing, stainless steel tubing, nylon tubing and bundy tubing | Valves: hydraulic control valves, cartridge valves, cartridge logic systems, servo valves, proportional valves, flow dividers, pneumatic valves and switches
• Supply, repair and fit gear and pistons pumps
• Supply, repair and fit PTO's
• Repairs to cylinders
• Machining
Pumps and Motors: Gear Pumps, vane pumps, bent axis pumps, radial piston pumps, screw pumps, inlet axial pumps, Hydraulic Motors – gear, vane, radial piston and axial plunger
Pipe Clamps
• Call outs
Accumulators
Cylinders: hydraulic cylinders, actuators, pneumatic cylinders
• Mobile hose van and general maintenance of compacting systems.
Interceptor by HI-TEC, answers to the end-user’s demand in providing high quality safety footwear with features that include a range of leather uppers, toe caps and specialised sole constructions. Interceptor will continue to push the boundaries of industry leading design and innovation by exploring the varied dangers inherent in an industry.
As we again exchange the lounge chairs and beach umbrellas for desks and boardrooms, it’s back to business and the question on our lips: what will 2023 bring? For one, we had all hoped the outcome of the ruling ANC’s key elective national conference in December would have provided much certainty with an assurance of better things to come. It did not.
It was about as chaotic an affair as governance by the ANC has become. Yes, it did return Cyril Ramaphosa to the ANC presidency for another term, but perhaps not by quite enough votes to set him free to pursue the bold economic reform path so many of us are still hoping for. To win a second term, he had to keep plenty of undesirables around to support him. Some of them are likely to survive an inevitable cabinet reshuffle, thus keeping the executive within the realm of the mediocre. But thankfully others – such as the backstabbers Lindiwe Sisulu and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma – are likely to get the boot. That will be an improvement… however slight.
However, in the chaos of the conference, key policy decisions had all been deferred to coincide with the delivery of the ANC’s annual January 8 Statement – expected any day now as I write. This, perhaps also together with the state of the nation address in February, will provide the first glimpse of where a second-term president and his newly elected national executive committee might want to lead our seriously troubled country. It will be a vital indicator for business and a chance to end the uncertainty.
In the meantime, you can read in this edition of Forerunner all about the ANC conference; the upcoming, all-important Mining Indaba; our interview with Busisiwe Mavuso, Executive Director of Business Leadership SA; the organised crime cartels terrorising most industrial or economic sectors; the supply chain and energy pressures affecting the world and South Africa; reinventing post-Covid air travel; the property outlook for 2023; the latest on youth unemployment; the dire situation of local government in the country and how it affects business; as well as some satirical takes on our politics.
Yours sincerely
Stef Terblanche
Be careful what kind of smoke you wish people to blow. Or more precisely, be careful of enticing young people to switch to the alleged benefits of your vaping product. It could get very costly, or even put you out of business. That’s what giant US e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs just found out. The hard way. The company has reached a settlement of more than 5,000 lawsuits with about 10,000 plaintiffs in California costing it hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps even billions. The exact amount was not disclosed, but one lawyer involved said it was huge. The company’s marketing tactics were blamed for creating a youth vaping epidemic across the US.
The litigation in a San Francisco court included thousands of personal injury suits, and more than a thousand complaints brought by government entities
Blowing smoke can be very harmful to your bank balance
and native Indian tribes. Although the company claims the settlement has secured a rosy path forward for it, it nonetheless last month was forced to lay off around 400 employees, cut its operating budget by about 40 percent, and secure financing from investors to be able to carry on operating. This must have been a huge dampener for Juul co-founders Adam Bowen and James Monsees after they were crowned e-cigarette billionaires back in 2018 when Marlboro maker Altria Group acquired about a third of their company. Seems like quite a profitable smoking habit just went up in costly smoke.
Some say this is taking the post-Covid ‘new normal’ a bit too far. Others say it is the way to go, the way of the future. Under discussion here is the extent to which local companies have been conducting virtual AGMs allowing only online participation by shareholders. Gone are the traditional shareholders’ meetings with rowdy discussions from the floor, clapping and foot stomping, execs showing off their latest high-tech conference gadgets, or shareholders and company execs swapping gossip at the tea breaks. No sir, you must wait your turn and push a button on your phone or laptop to get into the swing of things.
No wonder there were quite a few unhappy campers recently when companies like Shoprite and Woolworths among others turned their shareholders into virtual beings. More like virtual zombies, muttered one old-timer for whom old habits die hard. One benefit though, is that shareholders wishing to attend but who live far away, no longer have to appoint a proxy or otherwise fly in and overnight in an expensive hotel. You can now attend the AGM from the comfort of your bed, the loo, the beach, or your couch, or wherever. Your choice.
But companies beware - legal experts warn that virtual-only AGMs may create significant risks for listed companies who fail to ensure meaningful shareholder participation in line with the law and JSE rules. It came to light recently that some major local blue-chips would be using virtual AGM platforms which allow for selective moderation of questions before they are presented to the board. Doing so would, however, be breaching the provisions of the Companies Act and could infringe shareholder rights. And that could create some serious headaches for companies concerned.
Treading carefully around such possible pitfalls, when recently inviting shareholders to participate in its AGM, Woolworths was super careful to note: “The AGM will be accessible and conducted as a virtual meeting where shareholders may attend, participate and vote by way of electronic communication, in accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act, the JSE Listings Requirements, and the Company’s Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI)”. Smart way to go. Yet some critics say that despite corporates sticking to the letter of good governance codes, they are less agreeable when it comes to the spirit. Perhaps this could well still trigger a virtual shareholders’ rebellion.
Meet thought-leaders, government leaders, c-suite and other influential people in the industry all under one roof.
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Everybody knows it’s not good business practice or common sense to hide one’s profits under the couch of an isolated farm house – anyone, like the maid for instance, might find it and it may disappear. Worse, it could open a can of worms that may come to eat you alive. That of course is a lesson our president, Cyril Ramaphosa, had to learn. At the time of writing here, the storm was still raging around poor Cyril’s head following the release of the Section 89 independent panel’s report on his involvement in the rather sordid-looking Phala Phala cash heist affair.
So, by the time you are reading this, Cyril may already be (a) an inmate in the hospital section of Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria soon to be released early on medical parole so he can join the deadly ill Jacob Zuma and Shabir Schaik on the golf course; or (b) on a flight to Argentina to go start a new incognito life far away from buffaloes and toxic politics; or (c) walking tall as the recently re-elected ANC president for the next five years. At the time of writing none of this was quite clear yet.
What was quite clear, however, was that the report of the independent panel led by retired former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo that had to see if there was a case for Ramaphosa to be impeached by Parliament, had not brought any clarity on anything either. The report was inconclusive and vague, saying only that Ramaphosa may have violated the Constitution, he may have violated his oath of office in handling the situation, and therefore may have a case to answer. Just may, may, may, and certainly not did, did, did. Nothing new there – we knew all of that before the report ever came out. So naturally Cyril petitioned the highest court in the land to take the report on review and dismiss it.
All of which adds another puzzle to this litany of puzzles - why all the noise and fuss around the release of this report? It only confirmed all that we already knew before; there was nothing new that could possibly have incensed everybody to make such a noise. The answer is probably simple: that’s politics. Give your enemies a grass straw and they will seize it as if it is a big stick and beat you with it, hoping you’ll forget it’s just a blade of grass. Melanie Verwoerd got it write when she says everyone must just calm down and that the Phala Phala saga just shows again how present ‘vulturism’ is in our politics. So, in the meantime we wait for the next chapter, while all of the country’s vital organs remain infected and broken, the economy has no clue where to next, the hungry get hungrier, and crime seems to be the only business in town that still seems to be truly profitable. But don’t fret too much because it’s all just business as usual, South Africa style.
The Dawn OHSE Consultants is a 100% wholly female black-owned company that was established in 2015 to service various sector industries across the African continent in Occupational Health, Safety & Environmental (OHSE) Management. The Founder and Managing Director of the company, Dibuseng Maduane-Makobe has been in the OHSE industry for more than 18 years working across different sectors of the industry (manufacturing, mining, rail, automotive to name a few), in both private and public organisations as well as parastatals. A qualified Medical Scientist by profession with an MSc. in Biotechnology from the University of Witwatersrand, instead of applying her skills in the Medical Laboratory, she went and entered into a sector that was mainly male-dominated with no OHSE experience whatsoever but worked her way up to where she is today. Dibuseng does not like monotonous work and therefore found the OHSE more appealing as no two days are the same.
One of the most important aspect that The Dawn OHSE Consultants focuses on is compliance to OHSE legislative and other related requirements in order to reduce legal liability for employers, for moral obligation purposes as well as for economic or financial benefits. All organisations are expected to conduct their business activities in a responsible manner, with no adverse consequences to any stakeholders, including the public and any other third party.
The Dawn OHSE Consultants therefore assists the Public and Private sectors including Parastatals and NGO/NPOs not only in South Africa but beyond the boundaries of South Africa to comply with regulatory requirements and also to positively change the behaviour of all stakeholders in as far as OHSE is concerned. We believe that The Dawn OHSE
Consultants offer expert solutions to occupational health, safety & environmental challenges faced by organisations on a daily basis. Our proven expertise and experience in these fields, combined with our youth and women empowering business structure and strategic partnerships, make us the logical service provider of choice for any proactive market leading organisation. We understand the challenges and pressures faced by organisations in fulfilling their Health, Safety & Environmental obligations as part of the drive towards sustainability, hence The Dawn OHSE Consultants strives to continuously come up with practical solutions in assisting companies to achieve excellence in occupational health, safety and environmental sustainable performance. We provide professional solutions for Health, Safety and Environmental legal compliance, Risk Assessments, OHSE Management Systems’ development, implementation and auditing (ISO 45001: 2018, ISO 14001: 2015 & ISO 9001: 2015), Responsible Care audits, OHSE Legal compliance audits, Seta-accredited OHSE Training including Legal Liability, Incident Investigation, Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment, Facilitating OHSE Committee & Strategic meetings, Dangerous Goods Training as well as Firefighting & First Aid training among an array of other products and services we offer. The Dawn OHSE Consultants is definitely your ultimate partner of choice in ensuring that both the Employer and Employees’ well-being as well as the well-being of the Environment is protected and preserved.
Contact details:
TEL: 012 430 2721 082 371 6267
EMAIL: dibuseng@thedawn.co.za
WEB: www.thedawn.co.za
ADDRESS: Dibuseng Maduane-Makobe
1117 Corner Justice Mohamed & Stella Street, Waterkloof, Pretoria, Gauteng
• 100% South owned and managed
• BBBEE level 1
• Iso 9001: 2015 compliant & certified
• Over 15 years in the renewable energy space in Africa
• Members of SAWEA and SAPVIA
• A contributor to the training & development through Merseta and in partnership with Northlink College
SCOPE OF SERVICES:
MET MAST INSTALLATION:
• Supply mast & instruments and install to clients specifactions
• Wind & solar resource assessment
• Mast placement recommendations
• CAA applications
• Monthly data reports to clients’ requirements – including adhoc reports as required by clients
• Maintenance of sites
DEVELOPMENT SERVICES:
Early-stage screening:
• Resource assessment and preliminary report
• EIA screening
• Potential size of farm with respect to mw capacity
• Land securing and lease agreements
• CAA applications
With 15 years of experience in the renewable energy space in south Africa, CAPEAFRICA has grown from Met Mast installations to technology driven centre providing technical development and support to the renewable energy sector in South Africa and now assisting European companies entering the South African market. We are strategically placed in the Western Cape, South Africa and work throughout Africa.
STUDIES:
• Wind & solar resources
• ESIA
• Other relevant
COMPLIANCES:
• SPLUMA registration
• Grid servitude registrations including leases
• Water rights usage
ALL LEGAL COMPLIANCES
POST STUDIES:
• CFD modelling
• Wind & solar farm design
• Financial projections
Rise renewables – developing renewable energy solutions for africa. Rise has entered into a partnership venture with capeafrica and have launched a south african renewable energy development company – rise renewables (pty) ltd. The african market for energy is huge and we believe that with the technical support from the technical partner (capeafrica) and the development strength of rise renewables – we shall together develop renewables to deliver to this huge demand.
• 100% South african owned and operated
• BBBEE level 1
• Strong fund management & development background
• Team has an excellent track record with respect to investment and roi for the respective funds
• The team has over 25years of experience in the investment and structured finance space
• Early-stage development funding through capeafrica in solar and wind farm development to fully permitted stage – bid readiness. Including land leasing negotiations
• Private ppa structured funding to clients’ specific needs (from a 100kw system to a 200mw system) – wind and solar or hybrid solutions including batteries
• Sourcing and fund management for larger scale development through expansion into the african market and sub-saharan region
In partnership with capeafrica rise renewables has over 10,000 mw of renewable energy projects under development. These projects are being development in:
• SOUTH AFRICA - > 8000MW
• NAMIBIA - > 2000MW
• MAURITIUS – 100MW
• ESWATHINI & LESOTHO - > 500MW
• Rise renewables shall enter the reippp market within the next 2 years
• Plan to have 2 plants dedicated to green hydrogen production by the year 2025:
MANAGING DIRECTOR
DUANE GILBERT
duane@riserenewables.co.za
info@riserenewables.co.za
www.riserenewables.co.za
• One in the western cape 50mw solar to produce in the region of 20mw – 25mw green hydrogen. This is in collaboration with a japanese company
• 500mw – 600mw solar pv plant in namibia to produce at least 300mw of green hydrogen
• To have at least 3000mw fully permitted with respect to reippp requirements by august 2023 (studies all wip and at nearly 60% – 70% stage
After two years in the Covid-19 doldrums and a slightly later than usual yet very successful event in 2022, the Mining Indaba is returning to Cape Town this February with a big bang –bigger, bolder and offering much more by way of value and content than ever before.
This year the Indaba, or given its full name, the Investing in African Mining Indaba, takes place in Cape Town’s international conference centre form 6-9 February. Billed as the only place where the mining community comes together to spark change and drive investments into Africa, the Indaba affords delegates an opportunity to join investors, financiers, operators, suppliers, government leaders, and mining and exploration companies from all over Africa and around the world. It promises four days of unrivalled deal-making opportunities, industry-leading discussions,
and business-changing connections.
The Mining Indaba is dedicated to the successful capitalisation and development of mining interests in Africa. Over the past 27 years, it has provided a unique and widening perspective of the African mining industry, bringing together visionaries and innovators across the entire value chain. The Mining Indaba also supports education, career development, sustainable development, and other important causes in Africa and the mining communities across the continent.
According to the organisers, the Mining Indaba is a space for unmissable, high-impact networking, and creating opportunities and conversations to land deals. This year the Indaba also hopes to attract more junior, mid-tier, and major mining companies, investors, and again what it says is the largest gathering of Pan-African government ministers.
With over 6,500 mining experts descending on the city the conference also brings a significant injection into the regional and wider economy of South Africa. It contributes around R177-million to South Africa’s GDP (of which 80% comes from international sources), generates almost 300 full-time annual job equivalents in the country, and contributes around R22m to national taxes.
To get a proper early insight into what can be expected from this year’s Mining Indaba in Cape Town, we spoke to Tom Quinn, Head of Content at the Investing in African Mining Indaba.
Q: Tom, following the success of last year’s Mining Indaba emerging from the pandemic, what is the mood this year from exhibitors and others for the Mining Indaba 2023?
Overall, the mood is very positive across the board. We saw a record-breaking Indaba in May 2022 that really set the tone for the industry and for post pandemic events as we lead up to February 2023. We are seeing a lot of early commitment and have no doubt this will be a sell out once again.
With commodity prices remaining strong, demand for critical minerals, battery metals and rare earths really accelerating we can expect this to translate to another bumper turnout and we are really excited to be back to our regular dateline in February.
Q: Please share with our readers what the organisers saw as success stories from last year’s event and how do you plan on improving it for 2023?
The resounding success of the 2022 show was being able to bring people back together safely, securely and in large numbers after such a long time apart. There were a lot of unknowns in the lead up to the show and delivering a show with record numbers in the way that we did was a huge success.
Looking more closely at the industry we saw the number of government leaders and heads of government increase significantly from the last live show in 2020, where we saw 3 heads of state, 1 prime minister, 48 ministers and 19 high commissioners and ambassadors. This really reaffirms the importance of the Indaba, that it is given the upmost attention and support by state officials and is really driving positive policy change across the continent.
We are always looking to improve how we do things and using industry feedback we have a number of new initiatives and programmes that will run this year, including the Explorers Showcase, the Junior MINE and the Official Government Leaders Programme, as well as enhancing every aspect of the show delivery.
Q: What are some of the highlights for the 2023 event that we can look forward to?
As always, we are hoping for a blockbuster line up of speakers, including heads of state. So please look for more announcements on this over the coming weeks. One particular programme we are excited about for 2023 is the Explorers Showcase, where we want to showcase earlystage explorers through presentations and core samples to help stimulate those much-needed conversations with investors
This ensures we can now claim to be driving investment into every stage of the mining production cycle through explorers, to juniors and on to mid tiers and major mining companies. It’s a great initiative, supported by
“…a blockbuster line up of speakers, including heads of state…”
the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, South Africa, and will also help to support their exploration drive. To compliment this, we will run the Junior ESG Forum as well our ESG Awards. And please also look out for our new dedicated area for Junior Miners, aptly named the Junior MINE. Plenty to look forward to for 2023!
Q: How successful was the 121 Junior Mining event –anything new in this regard for the next Indaba?
The event was very successful in reconnecting the industry that had been starved of in-person meetings and relationship building for nearly two years. The 121 Mining Investment Cape Town event brought 100 junior mining companies and over 400 institutional and sophisticated investors together. The value for buyside and corporate to be back in person, in Cape Town, was clear. Project updates, investor panels and mining company pitch and judging sessions set a vibrant tone for the week of events across the city.
Q: What exciting do you have planned that audiences can look forward to – in terms of speakers, new items on the agenda, etc?
Last May it was wonderful to be able to gather, once more, in Cape Town for the world’s largest mining investment event after two years of the global pandemic. With Mining Indaba’s integration of 121 Group, we are in an even stronger position to serve our thousands of delegates with bespoke meetings and programmes between investors and junior miners as part of their Mining Indaba experience. For the first time in 2022 we held our dedicated Infrastructure & Supply Chain Forum bringing together the vital mining supply chain companies with senior mining executives to discuss ESG-focused solutions to Africa’s growing mining operations. Such was the success of that programme, we have integrated it with our technology-focused Mining 2050 stream, to create the new three-day InfraTech @ Indaba content platform looking at critical aspects of mining infrastructure, technologies and building effective supply chains.
We are returning with the highly popular Innovation & Research Battlefield – with our partners at the Development Partner Institute – which made its debut last edition. The battlefield is the unique platform where academic institutions and start-ups can showcase their latest ideas to make mining more sustainable and decarbonized. Thanks to
the generosity of BHP and the University of Melbourne, our winners received a substantial cash prize to help bring their concept to reality.
Delegates will also benefit from our mainstay content streams during Indaba week including, Main Stage, Ministerial Symposium, Intergovernmental Summit, Green Metals Day, Mining 2050, Sustainability Day, Young Leaders Forum, and the General Counsel Forum.
In February, attendees will hear from global leaders in the Mining Indaba network including, Anglo American Chief Executive, Duncan Wanblad; Rio Tinto’s Chief Executive, Minerals, Sinead Kaufman; the relatively new CEO at Exxaro Resources, Dr. Nombasa Tsengwa; Minerals Council SA CEO, Roger Baxter, before he steps down from that role in April; Alphonse Kaputo Kalubi Chair of DRC giant, Gécamines SA; and of course the CEO of ICMM, Rohitesh Dhawan, as well as many other top executives deeply involved in Africa’s mining industry.
Q: What is the appetite from exhibitors? Any new companies that will be first timers?
The mining community has demonstrated a voracious appetite to particate at the 2023 edition of the Investing in
“…In February, attendees will hear from global leaders in the Mining Indaba network …”
African Mining Indaba, booking all stand inventory. We’ve confirmed dozens of first-time exhibitors and sponsors who will participate at this year’s event, including the likes of Gecamines, Debswana Mining Company, MSTA Canada, State Government of Victoria (Australia), and many more!
Q: Tell us about what we can expect with regard to speakers’ topics?
If you look at some of the most trusted academic and consultative research on mining currently, there is no doubt that ESG-focused mining continues to dominate the entire value chain. We are always conscious to reflect the needs of the Mining Indaba delegates, so we will have discussions across the week ranging from, ‘Energy Transition Metals and Minerals – How Can the African Mining Sector Ensure Security of Supply?’; to the World Gold Council’s customary, authoritative panel on market conditions; a special investor focus on ‘Qualification and Quantification of ESG risk and Uncertainty Across the Mining Lifecycle’; our Women In Mining highlight panel on Main Stage; ‘Resource Nationalism Through the Lens of
heads of state to speak at Mining Indaba, so you will have to look out for our latest announcements.
Q: Importantly, what is the theme for the 2023 Mining Indaba and why have the organisers chosen this theme?
As the world cautiously emerged from the global pandemic in 2022, we rightly focused on getting Africa’s myriad economies back on track. Whilst ESG, from investment to operations and social licence to operate, will continue to underpin the values of Mining Indaba, we find ourselves entering a new chapter in both pan-African and global economies.
Therefore, at February’s Indaba the official theme will be, “Unlocking African Mining Investment: Stability, Security, and Supply”. This captures the very real geopolitical shifts and economic disruptions we are experiencing, and which are providing pressure points – as well as opportunities –within African mining as global economies seek security of supply, especially for their own energy transitions, as well as the raw materials and precious metals to bolster their economic power.
Q: Given the challenges faced such as power, water, etc, do you have any speakers lined up to speak specifically on these issues?
Power and water are not just necessities for mining operations, they are vital components of the communities who make a living from mining. We are delighted to welcome Mining Indaba’s former chair of our advisory board, Mpho Makwana, to speak on power issues in his new role as Chair of the Management Board at Eskom.
Investment Risk, Security of Supply and the Impact of AfCFTA’; and our exciting ‘Hydrogen Opportunity’ debate which will feature industry leaders involved in bringing Africa’s hydrogen potential to life.
The content across the week will cater for all of our core Mining Indaba audience including governments, investors, community leaders, mining operators, and key suppliers to the sector. Again, we also hope to welcome a number of
Of course, IPPs and renewable energy has been a growing part of the Indaba for the last few editions, so we will hear from leaders such as Vivo Energy as well as operators like Anglo American and Gold Fields who are harnessing zerocarbon power to drive down emissions in their Scope 1-3 footprint. The ICMM and Minerals Council South Africa will bring thought-leadership on water usage and efficiencies, as well as the critical need for tailings reduction and safety.
There it is! This year’s bumper Mining Indaba promises to be a super event, and one not to be missed.
The long-awaited elective national conference of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) that took place from 16 to 20 December, plus delivery of the ANC’s annual January 8 Statement, were collectively supposed to be watershed moments that would spell out clear programmes – it was widely hoped – to take South Africa on a new political and economic path of recovery. Both failed dismally to do so.
Instead, in a shambolic parody of the way the ANC often governs, the conference ended with much of its business
unfinished and deferred for finalisation to January 5 and 6 in an extended “hybrid” session of its policy commissions, topped off by the January 8 Statement delivered by President Ramaphosa on January 8. Even with all this extra time, the party still failed to finalise its proposed policy resolutions and provide any policy certainty, most importantly so in the economic sphere.
Any hope that Ramaphosa would provide some substance after the conference chaos, were quickly dashed when the president simply repeated a litany of previous hollow
promises and gave a repeat listing of South Africa’s many problems and challenges… which all South Africans can recite in their sleep by now. There was nothing new, and certainly no remedies being offered.
The conclusions to be drawn from this, are:
• A further period of political uncertainty will now prevail which could be addressed and ended – or not - by the following sequence of pending events: the ANC lekgotla followed by the government lekgotla, the announcement of a cabinet reshuffle, the president’s state of the nation address (SONA0, and the national budget presentation. President Ramaphosa has promised a government with more bite and less bark going forward – these events will put his words to the test.
• Developments in the three weeks following the ANC national conference, the re-election of Ramaphosa as president, and the election of a new ANC national executive committee (NEC) suggested that Ramaphosa has not yet escaped the restrictive clutches of factional divisions, opposition to his presidency in significant ANC quarters, or the limitations imposed by ideological differences across the tripartite alliance. Giving him the benefit of doubt, it may be that he has yet to digest the new balance of power within the ANC and settle into the new circumstances that may have emerged from the national conference’s leadership elections. But if he does not play a new, more decisive, direction-giving political hand by the time of his SONA, it won’t happen.
• Regardless of the aforesaid about Ramaphosa, a post mortem of the national conference has again confirmed that the ANC is politically and intellectually bankrupt with little or nothing new to offer the country, while it suffers a lack of depth, talent or new leaders able to move the country onto a higher, more positive trajectory of political, moral and economic recovery and renewal. It is only a matter of time before the electorate will fully reject the ANC unless rapid and deep changes are forthcoming, which seem unlikely unless Ramaphosa and other key ANC leaders suddenly undergo a Damascene conversion.
The most important failure of the ANC’s national conference was its inability to finalise this raft of policy proposals from its national policy conference of mid-2022. If Ramaphosa does not announce drastic measures or introduces certainty by the time he delivers his SONA in early February, change, certainty, or growth will most likely never happen under an ANC government. They have had 29 years – now their time appears to be up.
On the policy front many old policies – never implemented – were to be reaffirmed and new ones introduced. Little of this happened. Some of these were hard-line, radical and unpopular with institutions and business, but at least it could have provided certainty. Now the undecided threats still loom, spooking away potential investors. The biggest omission was not to finalise and provide more economic policy certainty or measures that could attract investment, stimulate business, create jobs and grow the economy. Instead, we’re still left baling out the water on a sinking ship.
Against this undetermined, shaky political background, the nationalisation of the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) and broadening its mandate to becoming a “developmental” tool of the ruling party, remain on the cards, but still vaguely so and without any clear implementation plans.
Broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) including aspects such as preferential procurement were again hailed as the alpha and omega without any specifics given and despite policy shortcomings and failures in this regard having caused the Constitutional Court to reject the policy in its current format, and despite last year forcing Treasury to make significant changes and exceptions to it.
Expropriation without compensation (EWC) was praised by Ramaphosa but in the context of the Expropriation Bill adopted last year by the National Assembly and not the amendment of the Constitution to achieve a more radical version of EWC, which previously failed to pass. Whether the ANC still intends revisiting the latter, remains unclear, and therefore a lingering threat to all property rights and a deterrent to investment.
The expropriation bill does, however, carry a cautious Ramaphosa hallmark – preconditions limiting the extent to which such expropriation can take place with a caveat to “just and equitable compensation” in specific cases. The overall approach to land redistribution in all its various facets remains mired in uncertainty.
Mining, once the proud backbone industry of the country, was again left in the doldrums and there wasn’t even any mention of the promised mining cadastre to replace the disastrous, heavily backlogged old system costing the economy billions in lost investment. Nothing new or definitive was offered in respect of “partnerships with the private sector”, while undertakings on how government will defeat the Eskom energy crisis, have all been heard before, soi far to no avail.
The one significant policy win for Ramaphosa was that the national conference ran out of time and couldn’t reconsider the ANC’s controversial “step-aside rule” – a tool effectively used by Ramaphosa and allies until now to get rid of opponents in the party tainted by criminal charges. No doubt it will still come in handy when needed.
Perceptions and implementation of new, progressive policy directions were always going to be closely tied to the outcome of leadership elections at the ANC’s national conference, and the balance of power that emerged from that. That would determine the next 5 years. In that respect the conference excelled, even if the elections and issues related to it took up all of the allotted 5 conference days instead of just one. New Top 7 officials (up from the previous Top 6) and some 80 new – and many not-so-new - ANC leaders were elected to the national executive committee (NEC), the highest decision-making body between national conferences.
The re-election of Ramaphosa as president has been generally well received outside the ANC – it seems like a case of, better the devil you know than the one you don’t, especially if the latter has an unresolved corruption question mark hanging over his head.
So, if the calibre and mix of newly elected leaders are so important to the future direction of the ANC – and
thereby the government and country – just where do we stand on that score?
The elections were hotly contested between two main factional streams – those rallying behind President Ramaphosa on the one hand, and various radical and dissident factions and groups on the other. The latter coalesced behind former President Jacob Zuma as their figurehead and Mkhize as their presidential candidate. Two would-be presidential hopefuls (and grossly underperforming ministers in the Ramaphosa cabinet), namely Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Lindiwe Sisulu, and their supporters, eventually threw in their lot with the Mkhize camp.
Two main election slates thus emerged around Ramaphosa and Mkhize, with Ramaphosa emerging top dog. But beware of getting swept along by various commentators’ misrepresentations of “a major victory” or a “clean sweep” – it wasn’t anything like that. And with the dynamics of a large number of variables and unknown factors still having to settle down or reveal themselves, the true or full power balance of the new NEC configuration has still to reveal itself. Ramaphosa is certain to retain his improved majority status in the NEC, but by what margin and to what extent it will set him free to act, has yet to fully play itself out.
At the moment he still seems uncertain, not sure that the margin is wide enough for him to rest easy or to feel free enough to make those big bold policy decisions and definitive interventions the country so desperately needs.
While Ramaphosa’s opponents in the ANC have seen their numbers trimmed somewhat and may find they will at times be less effective in blocking him than before, they will nonetheless still pose a potentially disruptive threat to him. And support for specific positions in the ANC tend to shift per issue, over time, and according to ever-changing prevailing conditions and priorities. Just how fickle support can be and how easily positions can shift, was aptly demonstrated at the national conference itself when some provincial leaders, particularly from Gauteng and Limpopo, became unnerved when they thought the Ramaphosa campaign was losing ground. At the drop of a hat, they switched sides.
Meanwhile, the outcome of the leadership elections has shown the following:
• A mong the Top 7 officials Ramaphosa’s Renew22 campaign secured the election of at least 4 candidates - Ramaphosa (president), Gwede Mantashe (national chairman), Fikile Mbalula (secretary general), and Maropene Ramokgopa (2nd deputy secretary general). It cannot be assumed that either Paul Mashatile (deputy president) or Nomvula Mokonyane (1st deputy secretary general) will become loyal Ramaphosa allies – they will probably try to assert independent or ‘neutral’ roles for themselves. The seventh official, Gwen Ramokgopa (treasurer general), probably leans more Ramaphosa’s way but will also not at all times be an assured ally of his. So, the future positions adopted by the Top 7 may vary from time to time per issue from a united front to a divided one.
• It has been claimed that 51 of the newly elected 80 NEC members, or just over 63%, came from the Ramaphosa slate. However, many of these and their policy positions and directional preferences are still
unknown outside of their immediate ANC circles –they have yet to prove themselves as Ramaphosa loyalists on the key issues that matter.
• Meanwhile , the noisy, arrogant “big man” entry at the national conference by Jacob Zuma and the illdisciplined behaviour of his supporters, plus other shenanigans from this camp, backfired badly and may have cost the Mkhize slate important votes in the end.
• Nonetheless, some of Ramaphosa’s fiercest opponents ended up highest in the NEC rankings with the most votes (from branch delegates). While that may be a factor to consider in the background, it won’t, however, carry any weight in the ordinary business of the NEC where each member’s vote is equal. But it may well carry some weight when Ramaphosa has to decide in an inevitable pending cabinet reshuffle who to keep and whom to ditch.
• Making matters worse for Ramaphosa, is the fact that a number of his staunchest allies on the previous NEC, people like Pravin Gordhan, Thulas Nxesi, Tito Mboweni, Blade Nzimande among others, failed to get re-elected onto the NEC, leaving a vacuum.
• While Ramaphosa managed to significantly increase his winning margin over Mkhize compared to the close finish between him and Dlamini-Zuma in 2017, the margins between candidates for the other leadership positions were often much tighter, which suggests that despite their setbacks, the Ramaphosa-opposing faction remains relatively strong, which may have left a worrying vacuum for Ramaphosa.
The sum total of all of this is that Ramaphosa still by no means seems to be a president free to provide decisive leadership and direction, to make the tough decisions and interventions he knows he has to make in order to pull South Africa back onto an upwards trajectory on so many fronts – from dealing with crime and corruption, to Eskom and electricity security, to an economic strategy that can produce investment, growth and jobs, among so much more.
By Stef Terblanche, Editor
Although already well-known as a business leader in South Africa, she caught the general public’s eye and received much support when in April 2022 at a meeting between Eskom board members and Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) she unflinchingly spoke truth to power.
On that day, Busisiwe Mavuso, Executive Director of Business Leadership SA and an Eskom board member at the time, told the politicians in no uncertain terms that the Eskom board and CEO Andre de Ruyter would not be the fall guys for the mess the ANC government had created at Eskom. The politicians didn’t like it much and she was controversially ordered to leave the meeting, and several months later she resigned from the Eskom board. We asked Ms Mavuso, who is also a Chartered Accountant, to tell us, in her experience and from her vantage point as a leader in business, how she viewed the state South Africa finds itself in.
Q: You are the Executive Director of a respected South African business organization. From your vantage point, where does South Africa find itself as we head into the new year? Are we in crisis?
BM: Organised business is often posed these questions – or variations thereof – and unsurprisingly the answers are complex. Are we in crisis? In my view the answer is yes. Very few I think would disagree that our unsustainably high levels of unemployment and severe developmental challenges are a crisis.
They have been for many years and have deeprooted historical and structural causes, compounded by a sub-optimal operating environment. As we enter the new year, we remain very finely balanced between further deterioration in our macroeconomy, business environment, service delivery and network industries, and green shoots emerging from positive reforms that are slowly gaining traction. The latter include the arrests of those implicated in state capture, long-overdue announced liberalisation of the energy sector, and a few others. But we are in a race to determine the socio-economic trajectory of our country, and it could go either way.
Q: Confidence indices seem to fluctuate a little, but some are seemingly nudging up into slightly more confident territory. Yet one op-ed and opinion piece after the other, one speech after the other, the clutter and noise on social media, all of it suggests there is unprecedented pessimism about South Africa among South Africans at present. What is your take – are things really so bad? Or are we overreacting?
BM: I don’t think anyone is over-reacting about the challenges we face. They are real, and very dangerous. There is a very long list of critical challenges that require urgent solving, ranging from energy, ports and logistics, bulk water provision, skills and education to under-investment in infrastructure and the lethargic pace of structural reforms. On the other hand, South Africa does have a lot going for it and remains investible. We can’t forget our world-class financial
and agricultural sectors and enviable minerals endowment, our free and vibrant media, our independent judiciary, our resilient business sector with national champions that are able to compete with the best in the world. But of course, we need economic growth and socio-economic development, and the difficult part is leveraging off our strengths by creating a conducive environment for further growth and development.
Q: In your view, what is the single biggest challenge faced by South Africa at this point?
BM: Criminality and corruption, followed closely by a policy environment that is not sufficiently supportive of investment and growth.
Q: What are the other major challenges in your view? And/or what do we have that counts positively in our favour at the moment?
BM: One of the things that keeps me up at night is, in simple terms, the pace at which we are burning through our infrastructure (which is a catalyst for investment) and our seeming inability to embrace a policy mix that can timeously resolve this. But as already mentioned, we have a strong judicial-legal framework and committed private sector that is willing to invest in South Africa if we can get the right policies in place.
Q: With such a desperate situation, what can we do to turn things around? Where do we even start?
BM: For one, we need to sufficiently capacitate the state – from law enforcement to SARS (SA Revenue Service) to frontline municipal workers – in order to resolve the implementation gap. Then we need policies that will enable growth. I’m referring especially to things like public-private partnerships, allowing the private sector to invest and participate in sectors of the economy that are currently state monopolies. This isn’t the same as deregulation – of course there needs to be oversight of the private sector by a democratically elected government, but the private sector can bring in much-needed capital, skills and operational wherewithal to unlock a number of our most problematic constraints.
Q: One commentator has likened the current situation under President Ramaphosa to the situation that existed under PW Botha – while one cannot compare apples with pears, perhaps it’s a question of Ramaphosa also having to cross his Rubicon? Would you agree with such a view?
BM: I think it’s a stretched analogy, but if one interprets the Rubicon to refer to the policy and economic reforms required to grow our economy to the point where we start making a dent in our unemployment and poverty levels, then yes the Rubicon absolutely needs to be crossed. There have been some positive reforms, but a lot more are needed – and at a quicker pace.
Q: What are your views on each of the following claims made by President Ramaphosa:
a. Structural economic reforms are progressing as part of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan – true or false?
BM: Partly true, but too slowly.
b. The government is prioritising its infrastructure investment and build programme – true or false?
BM: Partly true. The budget towards infrastructure spend has been increased, but actual progress is disappointing.
c. With another year to go, SA is more than 90% there in achieving R1.2 trillion in investment over 5 years – true or false?
BM: This is true. If I’m not mistaken, over 90% has been achieved.
d. Post-Covid recovery and growth is on track, and we are getting there – true or false?
BM: True, from a numbers perspective. But even the period before Covid was one which had been devastated by the infamous lost decade characterised by state capture and widespread looting and loss of confidence.
e. The social partners in Nedlac are on the verge of forging a social compact around economic reforms – true or false?
BM: Partly true in the sense that social compacting is ongoing, but I wouldn’t say anyone is on the verge of signing anything. There are many hard conversations still to be had.
Q: Can there truly be talk of a social compact when the governing ANC is in close alliance with the SACP and COSATU whose interests and ideological views are so far apart from those of business and perhaps most ordinary South Africans? Is there still room and motivation for the existence of the tripartite alliance, or should we move on and look at new alliances, new cooperative agreements?
BM: I think this is a valid point. It is highly unusual internationally for two social partners in a formal statutory social dialogue institution to be in a formal alliance. Does this make it difficult for organised labour and government at Nedlac to truly make concessions with one another? It’s difficult to say because it ultimately doesn’t change the calculus of how organised business presents its positions – we advocate for policies which we think are in the best interests of South Africa at large irrespective of the particular dynamics within Nedlac or elsewhere. To your point around changing alliances, I think that we are probably fairly close to common ground on a number of critical areas – including the need for the private sector to play a larger role in, for example, network industries – simply because the alternatives will at some point be shown to be economically infeasible. What we need to guard against however, is leaving this too late.
Q: While the politicians often claim they are engaging with business to solve many problems, this does not seem to be quite true. For instance, when President Ramaphosa said it was government’s role to facilitate an environment conducive for business and job creation but that it wasn’t government’s role to create jobs, he was forced to walk back his statement. Many people would say the recent concessions made by government to allow for more private sector participation in electricity generation don’t go far enough. However, looking back, it seems government always only ropes in the help of the private sector once it hits an absolute dead-end, and then only with strict limitations. Your view on this?
BM: This criticism of government is somewhat unfair. The telecoms sector, for example, was liberalised and rendered far more competitive and efficient as far back as the 90’s. Having said this, it is true that we are disappointed by the slow pace at which partnerships with the private sector in key areas have been pursued. And yes, often the
conditions attached are too onerous to prove workable. An example of this would be third-party access to the rail network. Concessions of two years simply do not create a business case for the private sector to invest.
Q: Through your organisation, BLSA, business leaders are said to engage key players in South African society, including government, civil society and labour, to exchange ideas, create effective dialogue, and to take action to create a more prosperous and inclusive South Africa. Can you provide some recent examples of this and the level of success you have achieved?
BM: Over the past year BLSA has worked tirelessly to ensure that it creates a prosperous and inclusive South Africa. There are a number of initiatives that BLSA and its partners have worked on to make South Africa great for business, and business great for South Africa. Examples of some of the initiatives we have embarked on this year, include:
BLSA signed an MOU with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) that will support Judge Raymond Zondo’s recommendations in his state capture report to prosecute those implicated in corruption – at the NPA’s request BLSA will mobilise the best available people in the private sector to work for the NPA to investigate and build cases for successful prosecutions.
BLSA has also partnered with Matla a Bana – an NGO that fights gender-based violence (GBV) - to open a GBV and child-friendly reporting facility at the Protea Glen Police Station in Soweto.
BLSA together with USAID through the Beyond Advocacy Fund initiative has helped address some of South Africa’s issues raised in the National Development Plan. The Beyond Advocacy Fund has helped upskill and employ young South Africans, capacitate SMMEs, provide affordable finance for SMMEs and helped with drought mitigation in Nelson Mandela Bay.
The Eyes and Ears (E2) Initiative is a joint crime-fighting venture involving BACSA (Business Against Crime), the SAPS (SA Police Service) and willing private security companies. It provides a coherent communication platform and formal framework for these three partners to work together in the fight against crime. Currently E2 receives approximately 14 million automated vehicle queries per day, which includes alerts regarding unrest, looting, cashin-transit robberies, business robberies, vehicles thefts
and hijackings.
Q: There is often much criticism of a number of members of President Ramaphosa’s cabinet, with some being accused of being remnants of the Zuma era. To date we have never really seen President Ramaphosa undertake any far-reaching cabinet reshuffle, getting rid of dead wood, bringing in the talented people we all know are out there. Do you think a significant cabinet reshuffle can help change the situation in South Africa faster and for the better?
BM: This is difficult to answer. We are obviously aware that government is elected democratically, and it is the prerogative of the President to select ministers of his choosing. But we have seen concrete examples during the second Zuma administration where specific individuals presented such problematic credentials that the market essentially forced them out of Cabinet (I’m referring here of course to the infamous appointment of former Minister van Rooyen as Finance Minister). So obviously, individuals do matter. On the other hand, our problems are unfortunately deeper than individual Cabinet Ministers: we know that the civil service in many areas lacks capacity and, in many cases, professionalism. This means that even with different ministers and better policies, there is often an implementation gap.
Q: Further to the previous question, rampant crime seems to be at the core of most of South Africa’s many problems. Criminal mafias seem to seriously disrupt just about every industrial or economic sector, from mining to transport to construction, you name it. Even a large part of Eskom’s problems seems to have stemmed from the sheer levels of criminality at play there. To some we seem to be a failed mafia state. It does not seem like the current police minister or his many generals are capable of fixing this problem. What do we do? Is that not where the clean-up, the repairs, and the rejuvenation to kickstart a healthy, growth-focused economy should begin? And then we are not even talking about corruption and state capture. How can we address our many problems without first addressing crime?
BM: I completely agree with your perspective as evidenced by your question. I would argue that, given where we are at this historical juncture, dealing with criminality and corruption is quite possibly our number one priority as a country. Without this, how do we hope to build an investment case for South Africa? What to do? Well, the first point to make is that there are a lot of good, dedicated
people in the State: look at the leadership of SARS and the NPA to name but two. They are doing remarkable work. As business, we support them wherever possible. What is needed is more of them and more resources to fight crime and corruption. Above all, we need to change the culture across the country where criminality and corruption is considered normal, something endemic. The way to do this is to successfully prosecute. Criminals need to be behind bars – over time the end of impunity will change this unfortunate culture of accepting crime and corruption as if it is a normal part of government and life in SA.
Q: Sibanye’s Neal Froneman and others have likened South Africa to a failed state. We know incompetence in the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy are causing huge licencing backlogs that are costing the economy losses of billions. Coal and other exports are not getting to harbours because of the poor state of Transnet’s rail and port operations. We have all the mineral resources in the world but are doing nothing to capitalise on it, it seems. How do we fix these things?
BM: Number one, create an enabling environment for further exploration of minerals in South Africa and investment in mining. Number two, fix our ports and logistics, especially rail. Concessions and liberalisation to unlock investment and participation by the private sector is the way to go. There are other improvements possible too, but this is it at the macro level.
Q: As mentioned, you served on Eskom’s board and have intimate knowledge of the problems and issues there. Do you think the appointment of the new board will go far enough to solve these problems? Why did it take so long to fill some of the vital vacancies? Is it healthy to have two political heads over Eskom who sometimes don’t seem to see eye to eye? Can Eskom still be saved? (Economist Dawie Roodt doesn’t seem to think so). What should be done in your view?
BM: I believe that the broad experience, expertise and skills of the new board members will provide stability and strategic direction to the energy provider. Yes, Eskom can still be saved, but the quickest route to achieving higher and more reliable energy supply and ending loadshedding is to generate new plants that allow some space for Eskom to spend enough on maintenance to stabilise EAF at round 60% until yet more new plants come online. The faltering Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers’ Procurement Programme needs urgent attention.
Q: Are we winning with transforming the South African economy; are we making it more inclusive; will we manage to narrow the inequality gap and lessen poverty; or are we barking up the wrong trees with things like EWC, BBBEE and affirmative action prescripts?
BM: As we all know, during apartheid black people were excluded from major parts of South Africa’s economy resulting in an unequal income distribution in South Africa, even after apartheid ended in 1994, and which I experienced personally as a black woman both pre- and post-1994. So, as a means to remedy this, policies like BEE and Affirmative Action were adopted, having some success in deracializing wealth and income distribution to an extent, but also clearly still having a long way to go with regard to things like deracializing ownership, management, etc. My view is that although few people would disagree with the principles underpinning BEE, our ongoing inequality and stubborn poverty and unemployment demonstrate that we clearly have not been as successful as we would have liked in both growing the economy and rendering it more inclusive – and thereby more sustainable.
Q: Up to this point we have focused on an awful number of negative things. What in your view are the good things we should focus on? What can we offer ourselves and the world to strengthen and grow our economy, to bring more of our people into sharing all it has to offer, to create jobs and more prosperity? Where and how can we turn the corner to a bright new world, finally achieving that promised ‘new dawn’?
BM: BLSA recently hosted a dinner for the 20-20 Investment Association. It was clear from the conversations with members of the association that they still see South Africa as an investable destination, and that we are not the worst investment destination in the world. There is a myriad of new investment opportunities available in South Africa such as those in the renewable energy generation and transmission sectors as well as in the electric vehicle manufacturing sector and the generation of green hydrogen. With that said, South Africa needs to do much more to build an investment-friendly environment by implementing wide-ranging structural reforms to make our economy more competitive and by implementing our resolution to do away with red tape. We also need to show investors that we are serious about fighting corruption and prosecute all those responsible for state capture.
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South Africa’s many problems and challengeselectricity outages, water shortages, a severely compromised public service, corruption, collapsing local government, and broken infrastructure, to name a few – can be fixed. Doing so would help improve economic growth and bring more investment, which in turn could help reduce high unemployment and poverty levels.
But fixing them may not achieve much unless what is arguably the country’s biggest problem of all is not first acknowledged as such and is resolved, namely runaway crime and the state’s inability to deal with it.
Along with the country’s consistently atrocious crime statistics covering everything from rape to murders and robberies,
another devastating crime phenomenon has manifested here over the last three decades, but especially so in the last decade. This refers to the organised crime cartels or mafias that now operate often with impunity in most industrial or economic sectors in South Africa.
They range from highly sophisticated transnational operations to crude local gangsterism. They are found disrupting, destroying, looting, engaging in blackmail, taking hostages, and attacking or killing people in sectors and industries ranging from construction and mining to electricity, logistics and transport, agriculture, health, energy, fishing, and the hospitality sector. Even small local and regional business activities, for example building supplies delivery services, are targeted.
State entities such as local governments and state-owned companies are also not spared. Operations at key state-owned companies like Eskom, Transnet and Prasa have been severely disrupted by these criminals, and the theft of copper cables, diesel and coal at Eskom has been a major contributor to rolling electricity blackouts. Large parts of Transnet’s freight rail services have collapsed as a result, with the vital coal export line between Mpumalanga and Richard’s Bay being hard hit. Prasa’s commuter train services stopped after these criminals stripped entire railway stations and stole sections of railway lines and copper signals cables, all sold as scrap metal, thereby making it very difficult for hundreds of thousands of people to reach their places of work each day.
It is a mafia-like cancer whose tentacles have spread across South Africa into every economically active corner. And the police, led by police minister Bheki Cele and a bloated army of police generals, collectively have so far mostly proven incapable or unwilling to do much about the problem, that is, until June 2022 when the problem started being tackled more seriously by government for the first time. Nonetheless, in many instances it has been alleged that senior police officials are colluding with criminals.
The result is that South Africa has become a mafia state whose economy is being strangled by criminals. In a sense, it represents another form of state capture, but perhaps cruder and more destructive and deadlier than the white-collar version.
According to the World Population Review’s report on crime per country for 2022, South Africa’s population is only the 24th largest out of 234 countries yet it has the world’s third highest crime rate after Venezuela (highest) and Papua New Guinea (second highest). South Africa has the highest crime rate in Africa, higher even than Nigeria (16th) even though the latter has a population almost 4 times bigger than South Africa.
The report notes that South Africa has a “notably high rate of assaults, rape, homicides, and other violent crimes” as well as one of the highest rape rates in the world. This, it says, has been attributed to among other factors, high levels of poverty, inequality, unemployment, and social exclusion, and the normalization of violence.
These crimes prevail in the context of general or ‘normal’ crime. But there is another context to crime in South Africa – organised crime.
Another report released in 2022 by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, called the Global Organised Crime Index 2021, shines a more definitive light on the presence of organised crime and crime syndicates in South Africa. The Global Organised Crime Index is the first tool of its kind designed to assess levels of organised crime and resilience to organised criminal activity and includes in its rankings all the UN member states – 193 countries.
In terms of organised crime alone, this report ranks South Africa 19th out of 193 countries, 5th out of 54 African countries, and first, or worst, out of 13 Southern African countries. As this report points out, the scale of the problem must be acknowledged before it can be addressed effectively. Despite the South African government finally having started taking tougher action against the illegal scrap metal trade in the latter half of 2022, it sadly has yet to recognise the full combined scale and devastation of the overall impacts of organised or mafia-style crime on the economy, and devise and implement a comprehensive plan to fight it on all fronts.
The conclusion to be drawn from all available research, reports and media coverage over the past ten years, and when viewed in proper context, is that in South Africa organised crime in particular and crime in general are arguably a bigger threat to the country than power utility Eskom’s massive electricity supply issues. In fact, one could easily argue that it may well be the country’s biggest problem, even though it’s not officially acknowledged as such.
And with organised criminal cartels and gangs directly targeting different sectors of the economy and often paralysing large parts of them, and directly threatening and impacting business, different industries and state entities, it constitutes a direct assault on the economy. Yet the country has demonstrated very little resilience against it. South Africa is almost literally drowning in a sea of uncontrolled, runaway crime and there is no comprehensive, multifaceted plan to counter it. Nor sufficient resources or dependable, capable manpower, it would seem.
The Global Organised Crime Index report lists among the network activities in South Africa, human trafficking, both internal and transnational, including sex trafficking and forced labour; illegal or smuggled firearms used by criminals, which lead to the murder of Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear, a high-ranking police officer, while he was investigating a
‘guns-to-gangs’ scandal implicating senior police officials and powerful gang bosses; the trade in illegal timber from other countries in the region; fauna crimes such as the poaching and trafficking of rhino horn and a growing range of other wildlife trafficking; abalone poaching and smuggling by violent gangs; the illicit mining and trade in gold, diamonds, and more recently also chrome and other platinum group metals; fuel that is stolen and sold locally or smuggled to markets outside the country; and massive drug trade involving almost every hard drug on the market.
The Global Organised Crime Index report says mafia-style groups are driving the high crime rates, particularly in regard to drugs and extortion, and to a lesser extent, environmental crime. While termed gangs, these groups are easily identifiable with known leaders and with membership concentrated in major cities. They are well armed, and there is a high level of violence associated with their operations. Two broad alliances, the 26s and the 28s, dominate the drug trade, with power having shifted to a new generation of gang leaders, says the report.
Mafia-style violence and organizations are also present in the mini-bus taxi industry, and by the beginning of 2020, targeted killings of individuals operating in the taxi industry in South Africa had reached unprecedented levels. Many gangs operating in South Africa, particularly in Cape Town, used the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdown measures to strengthen their hold over local populations. Criminal gangs or networks also capitalised on the alcohol and cigarette bans
and the illicit trade in these expanded rapidly.
The report also points out how local ‘syndicates’ with significant transnational links, are associated with moderate to high levels of violence and focus on a variety of criminal pursuits. There are high, middle, and lower-level state actors in all criminal markets in South Africa and pervasive corruption exists within many of the different state departments, including at senior levels within the police, prosecution, and prison services. The report also says South Africa is a prominent settlement destination for foreign criminal actors, particularly from Nigeria, China, Pakistan, Israel and southern and eastern European nations.
According to the report the overall trend over the last 13 years (2002–2020) in South Africa has been one of worsening instability. But there have been some recent positive moves by government and the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture to crack down on corruption. But while South Africa has standards and systems for international crime combating cooperation in place, South African cooperation has in the past been very problematic.
This is the dire situation sketched by the Global Organised Crime Index, but what it does not highlight sufficiently, is the scourge of the fairly new types of criminal syndicates and gangs that have established their destructive and often deadly presence in almost every industrial or economic sector.
In varying capacities, in different criminal activities, and at
different levels the criminal actors involved range from local residents, businessmen, local politicians, criminals and even colluding police officials to foreigners legal and illegal, the numbers gangs (26s, 27s, or 28s), other violent gangs of the Cape Flats and criminal networks involving the Russian, Chinese, East European, Israeli and Nigerian mafias, among others.
Under ANC rule since 1994, the presence of these foreign mafia networks has grown substantially. When their demands are not met or their activities are obstructed, they do not hesitate to threaten, assault, extort, kidnap, or even kill local politicians, businessmen, law enforcement officials, magistrates or lawyers they feel are standing in their way. These gangs operate locally, regionally, provincially, nationally, and transnationally.
The following is a brief overview of what has been taking place in some sectors.
The construction industry is arguably one of the hardesthit sectors, involving construction projects ranging from RDP (mass low-cost) housing developments to the building of new bridges, roads, dams, schools, clinics, shopping malls and more. The local, regional or sometimes national criminal syndicates typically demand 30% of the value of a construction contract which they base on the 30% black/local content/services requirement of Treasury’s 2017 Preferential Procurement Regulations as part of the government’s BEEbased wealth redistribution drive.
In return the syndicates provide nothing other than ‘protection’. In the past, they destroyed or hijacked expensive construction equipment, held hostage construction company managers and executives, or threatened them, and murdered non-cooperative political ward councillors. In March 2019, the South African Forum of Civil Engineering Contractors (SAFCEC) estimated that construction projects worth a minimum of R25.5 billion had been violently disrupted and halted, causing as many as 110 civil engineers and other highly skilled technical personnel to leave the country. One major JSE-listed construction company has withdrawn altogether from its development projects in KwaZulu-Natal province as a result. Others are hiring armed guards.
Most of these criminal groups are said to be politically well connected and call themselves ‘business forums’. Often well connected to senior police officials and politicians higher up
in national or provincial government, some of these ‘forums’ also claim to be part of the ruling ANC’s Radical Economic Transformation (RET) faction aligned to the likes of former president Jacob Zuma and former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, both standing trial on corruption-related charges themselves.
The activities of illegal miners, known as zama-zamas locally, have been well reported by the media, yet little or no state action ever resulted until recently when they made headlines with the gang rape of 8 women participating in a fashion shoot on the West Rand. Many or even most of the zama-zamas are illegal foreigners from neighbouring countries, many of them former legitimate mineworkers. It is causing immense losses to the mining industry, not only in minerals illicitly mined, smuggled and sold by these groups, thus disrupting the legal markets, but also in underground mine collapses and blockages, stolen mining equipment, and threats to legitimate
mining personnel. Groups of zama-zamas have also violently attacked police and mine security, competitors and local residents living near their illegal activities.
In this sector criminal gangs have attacked, looted or hijacked long-distance freight trucks, especially on the M3 highway between Gauteng and the port of Durban. Various minibus taxi associations have been waging turf wars for years, have hooked up with criminal gangs, and have waged violent campaigns against other taxi and bus operators. Recently there was much media coverage of long-distance inter-city buses being attacked, with some drivers killed. Gangs have stopped and looted freight trains – recently a train carrying chrome was thus looted near the town of Emalahleni (Witbank) while coal is also looted from trains en route to Richards Bay’s coal terminal. Gangs have literally stripped entire railway stations and stole copper signals cables and sections of railway line for scrap metal. And containers are stolen or looted around major ports by criminal gangs.
Criminal gangs – sometimes colluding with Eskom workers or security personnel – have sabotaged Eskom plants and infrastructure, stealing copper cables, coal, diesel and machinery. This has exacerbated the country’s severe electricity crisis.
Criminal gangs or so-called ‘business forums’ operating in townships and towns are demanding that local ward councillors give them municipal contracts or risk violent injury or death. Some of these thugs join the local branch of the locally governing political party and try to ‘capture’ ward councillors using bribery or threats of violence. And some ward councillors are members of criminal networks or coopted by them. In Tshwane alone three ward councillors have been assassinated in fewer than four years by these gangs.
Criminal networks have successfully targeted and illegally obtained hospital tenders in the public health sector and have murdered at least one whistle blower.
Cross-border livestock theft raids by criminal networks operating from neighbouring countries regularly occur. Local syndicates also steal livestock from farmers and in at least one known case a number of police officers were part of
such a gang. In other instances, crops are stolen, or farmers are held to ransom with their crops set on fire if they don’t comply with demands. Expensive farm machinery is also often stolen or hijacked by criminal gangs. At another level small groups of criminals often attack isolated farm homes, killing the occupants and stealing firearms, cellphones and cash.
Criminal gangs and mafia syndicates operate protection rackets in all large cities around South Africa, demanding monthly payments from club, bar and restaurant owners in entertainment districts. If they are refused, violent and destructive retribution befalls the owners. Fronting as legitimate security companies they install their own ‘security guards’ and bouncers and take over the iilegal drug trade in clubs and bars. Some of these violent thugs pose as legitimate businessmen and even run upmarket clubs, bars and restaurants themselves.
Predominantly Nigerian and Cameroonian cartels run drugs and prostitution operations in all major South African cities, and even in many smaller towns. However, they face violence from local Cape Flats gangs if they overstep turf or product allocations. They are also heavily involved in trafficking young girls for sex work. Local police often collude with them or receive cash payments and sex favours to look the other way. The suburbs in all cities where they operate, and the specific drug houses, are well known to police, yet police raids very seldom occur.
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The activities of many of these criminal networks overlap into the tourism sector, causing immense damage.
The financial sector together with a variety of businesses have been hard hit by highly organised criminal gangs carrying out cash-in-transit heists. These gangs have good inside information, use stolen fast cars, are well equipped with military type weapons and explosives, and are extremely violent. Street lore has it that these gangs consist mostly of South Africans, Zimbabweans and Mozambicans.
Although not directly affected by the criminal activities of syndicates and other criminals apart from fraud, this sector is taking huge strain from insurance claims caused by their activities.
This then is the current state of general crime and organised crime by criminal gangs and networks in South Africa. There are other crime categories and sectors not even covered here.
It’s clear that fixing all South Africa’s other problems could ultimately amount to little unless a competent and capable police minister takes charge, the police service is first reformed and improved, crime is effectively countered at every level, the overall crime statistics are drastically reduced, and organised criminal gangs and syndicates are eradicated.
For much of the past three decades the authorities and police have allowed the problem to balloon out of control under their noses. However, somewhat belatedly, the government together with the SA Police Service and other agencies have started acting against the illicit scrap metal trade on which various syndicates in various sectors rely.
At the end of November 2022, the government announced a 6-month ban on the export of scrap metal plus other measures. Police Minister Bheki Cele gave details of the 20 nationwide Economic Infrastructure Task Teams that were in place since June, and which between 1 June and 31 October conducted 3,776 operations countrywide and made 1,946 arrests. That certainly is progress.
But police are seldom very cooperative with the victims of these criminal syndicates. A recent report related how police wouldn’t assist and instead told an impacted developer to find a way to work with the extortionist gangs. The property developer, in this case, had to make a temporary arrangement with the armed thugs who claimed to represent local construction ‘business forums’ to complete two projects in KwaZulu-Natal townships… projects that ultimately should benefit hard pressed citizens and not criminal thugs.
By Stef TerblancheTTL Media, publishers of Forerunner magazine, are proud to announce the launch in April 2023 of their brandnew magazine… Mining SECTOR.
Throughout the mining sector and beyond, many have been eagerly waiting for this new publication. Now this definitive mining magazine will finally be here, and will set the information and knowledge benchmark for mining and energy sector professionals. Don’t miss it! We will also be present at the Junior Indaba, on 6th & 7th June 2023 in Johannesburg.
SECTOR is a forward-looking mining magazine published three times a year, with which we endeavour to connect and inform key people and entities across the mining and energy sector. The magazine brings a fresh new, innovative and transformational perspective to mining in this era of rapid change. It addresses the issues of concern to mining professionals at the middle to senior management and executive levels. Our targeted LSM range is 6-10 and SEM 8-14.
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Don’t wait, contact us now on Tel +27 (0)21 761 0246
We will be covering the following:
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• Mining procurement in an era of change
• The Lithium Rush – scramble for a wonder metal or environmental rogue… We look at lithium as the new wonder metal; how prices are kept high; the Lithium value chain; and lithium as an environmental rogue.
• It’s a woman’s world… and mining is fast catching up.
• Digitally transforming SA mining bit by byte… The latest status of digital transformation in SA mining.
• Takeaways from the Mining & Energy Indabas in Cape Town.
• Roger Baxter, outgoing CEO of the Minerals Council SA looks at the challenges and future of mining.
• Taking the carbon out of mining.
• Establishing a lucrative rare earth metals industry for SA.
• SA mining by numbers… We highlight the largest, most successful mines and other factors based on the latest statistics from the sector.
• What government can do to better support mining.
• Where are all the emerging and junior miners?
•
Covid-19
the war in Ukraine,
have
in global supply chains. In this article leading supply chain experts, Sarah Schiffling and Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos, identify 5 challenges facing supply chains around the world, while Johannesburg-based supply chain expert, Marzia Storpioli, unwraps the pressures endangering African and South African supply chains.
First came the devastating impacts of the global Covid-19 pandemic that forced the world into a near total lockdown. Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the protracted war that followed. And arising from this the world suddenly found itself facing a crippling energy crisis and high energy prices. Now more alarming challenges potentially await supply chains around the world.
Following these successive crises, multiple bottlenecks disrupted global supply chains and the pandemic highlighted just how interconnected the world is. Now, in a collaboration between the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the online academic journal The Conversation, two experts warn of
five supply chain issues that could affect the world. Together with these five challenges, there could be more delays in the shipment of certain goods, particularly those made in Asian countries and delivered to western markets. And while shortages are unlikely, some products could take longer to reach their destinations as a result of these five issues, say Sarah Schiffling, a senior lecturer in supply chain management at Liverpool’s John Moores University and Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos, a lecturer in logistics at the Technological University in Dublin.
Here are the five challenges facing global supply chains in coming months that they have identified.
The
pandemic,
and the energy crisis
all caused havocImage by Markus Kammermann from Pixabay
Skyrocketing inflation has seen households hit hard by rising food costs. Expectations that consumers will have to severely cut back on expenditure has plunged demand for goods and services into uncertainty. This makes it difficult for supply chain planners to accurately estimate in advance the amounts and types of goods likely to be needed by consumers.
The pandemic has already changed this picture considerably but predicting demand has become even more difficult in 2022. Stock for the Christmas shopping period is made and shipped months in advance, so current uncertainty is likely to feed into incorrect forecasts. This could lead to certain products being more difficult to find or more expensive to buy as tighter supply pushes up prices.
The rise in the cost of living has also seen workers demand wage increases to counteract the impact of inflation on their pay packets. Industrial action ups the pressure on supply chains. Striking truckers in South Korea have already disrupted computer supply chains, while UK railway strikes have affected deliveries of construction materials. Dock workers went on strike in Germany and the UK, while freight hubs in Ireland faced strikes at the Port of Liverpool across the Irish Sea. And here in South Africa a crippling 12-day strike by Transnet workers in October 2022 prevented the transportation of an estimated R65.3 billion worth of goods.
Some UK unions floated the idea of coordinated strike action in coming months, which could cause further disruption to supply chains. In addition, truck driver shortages seen in 2021
have continued this year and labour shortages spread to other sectors that support supply chains, including ports and warehouses. Coupled with increased e-commerce demand since the start of the pandemic, operations are becoming increasingly strained for many businesses.
Inflation has not only been a problem for food prices, but also energy costs. Rising gas prices and reduced supply from Russia have been forcing European companies to look to alternative energy sources like coal, while research from Germany’s Chambers of Industry and Commerce shows 16% of its companies expect to either scale back production or partially discontinue business operations. Germany is Europe’s largest economy, and it is heavily dependent on exports. If it is expecting a recession, the impact on manufacturing supply chains globally could be significant.
But even countries that are less reliant on Russian gas are experiencing energy price rises with serious consequences for businesses. Pakistan has shortened its work week to lower energy demand. In Norway, fertiliser production has been slashed, affecting food supply chains. US retailers are cutting their sales forecasts and UK car makers are worried about their output. In southwestern China, car assembly plants and electronics factories have already started to close due to a lack of power. All of these disruptions will cause ripples along global supply chains.
The invasion of Ukraine is the root cause for much of the energy and food price inflation countries are experiencing at present. It has thrown supply chains into disarray this year, fuelling a global food crisis. A fertiliser shortage is
also limiting agricultural output in many countries. While some grain ships have been able to leave Ukraine, unlocking important supplies that will address famine in countries like Yemen, this will not solve the global food supply crisis.
In other parts of the world, tensions between China and the US that were already playing out pre-pandemic have continued. Recent Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait following a visit to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi disrupted one of the world’s busiest shipping zones in August. Any further escalation of tensions could disrupt, for example, supply chains that deliver semi-conductors used in computers to manufacturers around the world.
Climate change is a much more long-running problem for supply chains. This year, drought has caused water levels to drop around the world, impacting major shipping supply routes. Low water means ships can only carry a fraction of their usual freight to minimise the risk of running aground. While freight can be diverted to other types of transport, a single ship might require more than 500 trucks to move its cargo.
In recent months, parts of China’s Yangtze River, which is responsible for 45% of the country’s economic output, were closed to ships because water levels are more than 50% below normal. Two thirds of Europe have also been experiencing drought conditions, which are expected to worsen. The Rhine River recently had so little water that some ships could only carry a quarter of their usual freight. The drought also hit at a time when the Rhine and other rivers are needed to move high volumes of coal and gas to prevent energy shortages.
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change. Predictions for extreme weather during winter 2022 include a more active than usual hurricane season, which could hit several key Atlantic Ocean shipping routes.
Finally, these five issues are likely to affect lead times in the delivery of products, particularly electronics or automobiles that are produced in China and delivered to western markets as well as African markets.
The devastations of war being visited on the people of Ukraine has brought into sharp focus the dependency of European economies on cheap imported energy. European prosperity post World War II is largely built on accessible, affordable gas and oil from Russia. With the onset of winter in the northern hemisphere, Europeans are rapidly learning about the real cost of energy and its unique role in keeping the wheels of the economy turning.
This reality is not new to the people of Africa who have, since its introduction into the continent, always struggled to access energy, be it gas, oil, or electricity. Energy supply in Africa, and now more poignantly in South Africa, has always been unreliable and in many cases, unattainable.
increasing costs of energy. Africa is a net importer with imports contributing significantly to GDP. Refer to Figure 1 here showing the latest figures available. African countries must move swiftly to reduce the impact of global disruptions on their economies or risk higher poverty levels and the ensuing social unrest.
More than half of Africa’s economies now experience power shortages and regular interruptions in service. In most African countries, economic activity is stifled because access to electricity and other forms of energy is unreliable, unavailable and generally unaffordable. Economists estimate that over the past 10 years, power shortages account for over 2 percent decline in gross domestic product (GDP). Shortages also reduce annual per capita GDP growth rates by as much as 0.25 of a percent (African Development Bank Group).
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the oil price has soared and remains stubbornly high. Constraints on supply serve only to push local fuel prices even higher. All supply chains depend on energy – access to power underlies the movement of goods, services, and information. High prices and limited availability present a real and present danger to supply chains in Africa.
The journey towards energy independence has only just begun and for the foreseeable future, there is no relief from the
Such a heavy reliance on imports including fuel, vegetable oils and grains exposes entire populations in Africa to the threat of famine. Preventing disruptions to supply may increase the quantities available to global markets but this will not eliminate the problem.
Fuel and energy costs will remain high which means that the cost of essential foodstuffs – staple foods across Africa – will continue its upward trajectory. The obvious answer must be energy-independence. But such a solution must perforce incorporate the prerequisites of sustainability –limiting carbon emissions.
The first consideration for businesses will be to shorten their supply chains. The longer the supply chain, the greater the risk of disruption from extreme weather events (as in Pakistan), political tensions (such as in the Taiwan Straits), or trade wars (between China and the USA). By onshoring, re-shoring or even insourcing wherever this is possible, many of the current risks can be mitigated.
Identifying suppliers in geographies closer to home and moving away from low labour-cost countries may increase unit price but also reduce risk and the cost of transportation. The appeal of low-cost manufacturing in Bangladesh, Myanmar and China diminishes in the face of continued lockdown, unprecedented flooding and regime change.
New trade partnerships may need to be developed and greater collaboration with neighbouring countries encouraged, leveraging each neighbour’s comparative advantage. The focus on short-term benefits (of cheaper inputs and higher profits) must be revisited with consideration for long-term sustainability. Supply chains must be redesigned to achieve a smaller carbon footprint – reducing transport intensity and leveraging solar, water and wind energy.
These disruptions occur in a world that is rapidly warming where the threat of extreme weather events weighs more
Source: World Bank - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ NE.IMP.GNFS.ZS
“All supply chains depend on energy…high prices and limited availability present a real and present danger to supply chains in Africa.”
heavily on poor communities than their well-off neighbours. Supply chains, and their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, were in the spotlight before the onset of COVID-19. Now supply chain professionals are faced with two challenges – keep the supply chain moving and do it sustainably.
Globally, governments face a Sisyphean task in protecting their economies against unprecedented fuel price escalations. Their struggle does not augur well for African governments that do not have the sophisticated tools that are available to developed countries. The EU has proposed capping the revenues of electricity producers and extracting solidarity contributions from fossil fuel businesses whose profits have soared since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
Price caps and geothermal technology are not remedies in Africa’s arsenal. However, Africa has ample supplies of wind and sunshine, and these valuable resources must be directed to meeting the continent’s energy needs. Companies too can protect their supply chains by moving to renewable sources of energy to power their businesses. Public-private partnerships must be leveraged to access funds and expertise. Legislative roadblocks must be eliminated, thus freeing the private sector to contribute to a lasting solution.
South Africa in particular can reduce reliance on agricultural imports by promoting local investment in biomass fuels, vegetable oils and wheat production – building on 2021’s trade surpluses underpinned by robust exports
In the months ahead, supply chain leaders must focus on improving the performance of their operations, eliminating waste of every kind (idle time, superfluous motion, defects, untapped talent and other valuable resources). Using valuable resources optimally will improve output without the need to reduce inventories, remembering that ‘lean production’ introduces risk when there are higher levels of uncertainty.
The goal must be to improve performance to optimise resources rather than to cut costs. Plans for future success must include energy independence and a cleaner imprint on the environment.
For logistics professionals the road ahead is clear – reduce transport intensity without negatively impacting operations. Challenging as it may be given the vast distances in Africa, improving rail services and infrastructure must be high on government agendas. For businesses, moving to electric vehicles, despite the cost, is a priority. The messagemaximise the use of those technologies that improve the performance of your operations and the sustainability of the supply chain.
estern countries – and many othersreceived a huge wake-up call when the world was suddenly thrust into an energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The protracted war that has followed coupled to the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and a supply chain crisis in the midst of it all, have seriously compounded things and put the world economy on red alert.
The war in Ukraine caused shipping and oil and gas pipelines to be cut off. Sanctions and other geopolitical developments prevented Russia from exporting much of its usual supply of gas and oil to the West, Africa and elsewhere, with countries like China and India picking up the slack. A plan by the major G7 economies - backed by the EU and Australia - to cap the price at which Russian
oil is bought, has created even more uncertainty in global markets.
To manipulate global oil supply and prices, the US and China have both sought – on opposite sides - to cement relations with Saudi Arabia. As demand outstripped supply and oil and gas prices went through the ceiling, Saudi Arabia had stepped into a central role in the West’s standoff with Russia over its oil. The markets were in considerable turmoil and a host of other factors started kicking into play. The pressure for a global transition to clean energy added to these woes, and in the wake of diminished Russian gas and oil supplies, some European countries are reverting back to the use of coal.
South African consumers soon felt the impacts of the rising fuel prices at the pump and in their industries.
Eskom, who relies heavily on diesel for emergency backup generation, also felt the weight of this situation. But, located here at Africa’s southern tip far from all the action, South Africa is not gas dependent – but can get gas from Mozambique if needed. And it does not rely on direct oil or gas supplies from Russia, like Europe does.
Of course, South Africa has its own energy crisis – the breakdown of Eskom and the escalation of load shedding, causing huge electricity interruptions. In early December the country returned to Stage 6 loadshedding, with warnings of possible escalation to Stage 7 or 8, which would be a catastrophic first.
At the end of November, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) warned in its Financial Stability Review (FSR) that the ongoing energy crisis, coupled with gross sovereign debt projected to be more than R4.7 trillion in this financial year amid a global economic slowdown, could adversely affect businesses. It could also manifest in a shock to the domestic financial system, it warned.
South Africa has experienced its worst period of load shedding ever, with 170 days of rolling power blackouts this year due to unplanned breakdowns and a maintenance backlog of Eskom’s ageing coal-fired power plants.
Dr Nicola Brink, SARB’s head of financial stability, also pointed out that South Africa remained vulnerable to spill-over effects from global events such as the
ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and evidence of escalating global conflict and geopolitical polarisation. Slow and inequitable domestic economic growth leading to an unfavourable operating environment for the financial sector was exacerbated by increased loadshedding during the review period, which had the dual impact of negatively influencing investor sentiment towards South Africa and detrimentally affecting business productivity, she said.
“Insufficient and unreliable electricity supply is likely to threaten the viability of some corporates, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), for the foreseeable future, with losses potentially spilling over into the financial sector.”
So much for our own home-grown energy crisis, but what about the impacts of the global energy crisis in South Africa? Well, it seems amidst all this doom and gloom, the global energy crisis has presented South Africa with a number of unexpected opportunities.
Delivering the keynote address at the opening of the inaugural South Africa Green Hydrogen Summit held in Cape Town in November, President Cyril Ramaphosa said it was South Africa’s intention to become a world leader in green hydrogen.
The summit showcased the country’s offering as a largescale, low cost, world-class green hydrogen production hub and total value chain investment destination. It builds on the opportunities identified during the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium South Africa (SIDSSA) of 2021.
President Ramaphosa told delegates at the summit that the potential for South Africa to emerge as a significant player in the green hydrogen (or GH2) value chain “is immense”. The Green Hydrogen Summit took place after the conclusion of the UN Climate Change Conference, or COP 27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt where South Africa used the platform to elaborate on its just green transition.
Green hydrogen was identified as a “Big Frontier” in the Country Investment Strategy, indicating that it represents both current and future growth and investment potential for South Africa. The President highlighted that globally, the demand for green hydrogen and green hydrogenbased products, such as ammonia and synthetic jet fuels, is rising significantly (in no small way due to the effects of the war in Ukraine).
“This presents a unique opportunity for South Africa to link its mineral endowment with its renewable energy endowment to drive industrialisation. At the same, it will create jobs, attract investment, bring development to rural provinces and support a just transition from fossil fuels,” President Ramaphosa said. He emphasised that South Africa has existing and future potential to produce green hydrogen.
Green hydrogen is created when wind or solar energy is used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen and is considered to be an alternative fuel to power up industrial processes.It is estimated that South Africa has the potential to produce 6 to 13 million tons of green hydrogen and derivatives a year by 2050. This would require between 140 and 300 gigawatts of renewable energy. The President explained that the focus would be on green hydrogen exports, electrolyser and fuel cell production, and the manufacture of green steel, sustainable aviation fuel, ammonia, fertilizers and renewable energy components.
“South Africa is an investment destination of choice. The country has proven itself as a gateway to a dynamic continent with great prospects. Africa is growing its output, is rapidly urbanising and has a young population,” said Ramaphosa.
Energy supply in Africa, and now more seriously in South Africa, has always been unreliable and in many cases, unattainable, says Johannesburg-based supply chain expert Marzia Storpioli. It has had negative impacts on supply chains.
“More than half of Africa’s economies now experience power shortages and regular interruptions in service. In most African countries, economic activity is stifled because access to electricity and other forms of energy is unreliable, unavailable and generally unaffordable. Economists estimate that over the past 10 years, power shortages account for over 2 percent decline in gross domestic product (GDP),” says Storpioli.
In this lies huge opportunity for South Africa, if it can get the green hydrogen ball rolling… quickly and effectively. According to Ramaphosa, South Africa has many inherent advantages that make it internationally competitive in the production of green hydrogen. These include a world class endowment of both onshore wind and solar irradiation, he said. Companies like Sasol and PetroSA already have established have expertise in the production of synthetic fuels like diesel, petrol and kerosene, as well as a range of chemical products. And South Africa already produces 2.4 million tons of grey hydrogen for domestic consumption.
The President highlighted that a number of large and emerging South African companies have started doing work in the green hydrogen sector including the Boegoebaai Port and Rail project, among others. The project has been under development for over two decades and was gazetted as a Strategic Integrated Project in 2020. Sasol and the Northern Cape provincial government have also made significant progress on the master plan for a green hydrogen special economic zone, which aims to support 40 gigawatts of electrolyser capacity by 2050.
Also at the summit, Kaashifah Beukes, CEO of the Freeport Saldanha Industrial Development Zone which is busy establishing a green hydrogen hub in Saldanha, said green hydrogen could be used as a lever for electricity availability and could help strengthen the grid as the country tried to overcome its critical energy challenges.
Increasing demand for GH2 products that include ammonia and synthetic jet fuels, is being driven by the global focus on achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. It is being predicted that green hydrogen will play a significant role in the transition to clean energy in South Africa and elsewhere. Green hydrogen could well become a game changer for economic development and energy security in South Africa and across the continent.
The demand is further being driven by the war in Europe and the desire among EU countries to reduce their energy dependence on Russia or any other countries
it may not trust. That too underlines the potential of a green hydrogen industry for South Africa. Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, head of Infrastructure and Investment in the Presidency, said South Africa was regarded as one of the main future suppliers of green hydrogen products and that building a hydrogen economy could open up new export markets for South African companies as well as domestic use opportunities.
Europe’s return to the use of coal is another opportunity that opened up for South Africa because of the Ukraine war, albeit possibly a relatively temporary one given the global emphasis on transitioning to clean energy.
Just as coal was being given the boot in favour of clean, renewable energy options and banks would no longer finance coal projects, the Ukraine war temporarily saved coal from what was seen as its inevitable demise. In protest over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the members of the EU limited and cut their dependence on and imports of Russian gas and oil. This triggered huge pressures regarding their domestic energy requirements.
Seeking to overcome such shortages, Europe started supplementing its energy mix by turning back on its old, mothballed coal-fired power stations while also procuring more LNG. As a major producer of coal, South Africa was ideally placed to help fill the gap. And because of the demand and shortages in Europe, the price of coal shot up from roughly $100 to $450 a tonne, with Europe buying plenty of South Africa’s premium export coal. It is a welcome shot in the arm for local coal producers, providing Transnet can deliver the coal to the waiting ships in Richards’ Bay – which has been a problem.
But overall, despite all the negativities associated with events in Ukraine, and with the tough demands created by the rush to transition to clean energy, it seems these two events have opened up attractive new opportunities for South Africa.
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South Africa’s air travel industry is in the throes of something of a revolution…. even if not by choice.
Two years of pandemic and lockdown with people and countries isolated from one another, has left the domestic airline industry almost unrecognisable. Those airlines that survived the turmoil are busy trying to reshape air travel in South Africa but there are many challenges. While South Africa’s international travel options via its national carrier SAA are undergoing a fundamental transition, carriers operating in its domestic market have equally been thrown into a total makeover.
High jet fuel prices, the demise of many airlines, and high demand versus low supply of seat capacity, are some of the biggest problems.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic set in, up until December 2019, South Africa still operated SAA as its then 90-year-
old national carrier, even if for years it had operated at a loss. Due to depletive mismanagement of the carrier tied to politics and state capture, SAA entered voluntary business rescue in December 2019, suspending operations in 2020, and in 2021, the government sold a controlling 51% stake to the Takatso Consortium. Now the turnaround is ongoing.
Before Covid-19, South Africa had eight domestic airlines. Now, only four remain - FlySafair, Lift, CemAir and Airlink. The other, mostly older airlines – SA Express, Kulula, British Airways and Mango – have all been grounded or liquidated. That alone has significantly altered the aviation landscape in South Africa.
Whereas SAA previously operated a substantial fleet of different aircraft, it now operates 7 Airbus aircraft having
taken delivery of its latest addition, an Airbus 320, in September. Over the festive season it brought an additional 3 Airbus 320 planes into service, together with increased capacity to local and regional destinations in this period.
In former years, the distinctive tail colours of SAA were a familiar sight on the parking aprons of many an airport around the globe. And it also operated an extensive domestic and regional network together with its affiliate partners Mango, Airlink, and SA Express.
Re-establishing routes and destinations are a work in progress and in accordance with legislated and prescribed procedures, SAA meets with the International Air Services Council (IASC) on a quarterly basis to review and justify its route network plan and traffic rights to destinations it is not yet flying to. Meanwhile, it now operates between 6 regional and 3 domestic destinations while the IASC has ratified that SAA retains all its historical route traffic rights.
Over the past few weeks, before the start of the festive season, SAA introduced flights to Blantyre and Lilongwe in Malawi, Windhoek in Namibia, and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. It also introduced increased flight frequencies to Accra in Ghana, Cape Town and Durban, Harare in Zimbabwe, Lusaka in Zambia, Mauritius, and Kinshasa in the DRC, and for the festive season introduced flights to Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). In coming weeks, the airline will be announcing the addition of more routes to its growing network. These changes represent the second phase of SAA’s post-Covid restart operations which commenced a little over a year ago.
The airline is on course to re-enter some of its traditional regional markets and enter new routes which remain underserved. Plans are also underway to launch SAA’s first post re-start intercontinental route during the first quarter of 2023.
In addition to SAA’s own operations, customers can select to fly to destinations with SAA’s codeshare partners on Emirates, Air Mauritius, LAM Mozambique, Egyptair, Ethiopian, Singapore Airlines and Kenya Airways. SAA is also a member of the 24-member airlines network, Star Alliance, which prides itself as being the world’s largest global airline alliance and claimed World’s Best Airline Alliance title at the Skytrax 2022 World Airline Awards. Overall, the Star Alliance network currently offers more than 10,000 daily flights to almost 1,200 airports in 184 countries, which provides SAA customers with a vastly extended reach.
Despite the delays with the implementation of the capital restructuring transaction involving a Strategic Equity Partner (SEP), the airline is on course to deliver a commercially
sustainable and world-class air passenger and cargo services in South Africa, regionally and soon globally. There is a clear demarcation of focus between the SAA management that is driving a plan for competitive airline operations, and the oversight of matters relating to the SEP which are being managed by the Department of Public Enterprises, says the airline management.
SAA Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Professor John Lamola, says “SAA, as a buoyant national airline, has an important enabling role in the South African economy. Those routes and frequencies that are not part of SAA’s medium-term plans will progressively be released to the (International Air Services) Council for the benefit of the industry.”
“SAA as the national flag carrier and an entity wholly owned by the people of South Africa has a responsibility to secure the sustainability of the airline industry in South Africa as an enabler of economic development and facilitator of affordable air travel to all users of air transportation in the country. The addition of extra seat capacity in the market enables the achievement of an equilibrium between supply and demand in the market that affects the pricing of air tickets”.
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Besides this additional capacity of three A 320s, SAA recently increased the aircraft size on two of its busiest routes, Cape Town, and Harare. The Harare- Johannesburg route is now serviced by the larger A330 aircraft on three of its seven-day weekly frequencies.
In addition, according to SAA Chief Commercial Officer, Tebogo Tsimane, “SAA is replacing its A340-300 with a similar capacity aircraft and will exit the A319 fleet in 2023”. Tsimane added, “As we increase fleet size to match the needs of the growing network schedule, we are encouraged that our strategy to cautiously re-enter markets abandoned due to the Covid pandemic has served us very well during the past twelve month, and we will continue to follow that cautious risk-adjusted trajectory.”
SAA’s current business plan is to aggressively ramp up operations and to implement a fleet strategy that will continue to gain momentum of growing regional-continental services and introduce international-long haul services. It seems at last SAA is once again taking to the skies with confidence about its future, albeit in a very different and still much smaller guise from its old pre-Covid configuration.
The four domestic airlines that remain after the Covid-19 devastation are also facing a number of challenges as they endeavour to re-establish themselves and return South Africa’s commercial air travel back to competitive profitability. All are struggling to return to pre-pandemic operation levels.
Among the challenges they face are things like jet fuel rationing being introduced at Cape Town International
Airport last year, while the global energy crisis and high fuel prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have also been taking a toll.
The number of seats available have fallen to some 900,000 from the 1.5 million pre-pandemic seats. Route options are under stress, with some routes being cut by some airlines and others adding new routes, also outside the country. All of these things combined have driven up prices, putting airline customers under much strain with knock-on repercussions being felt by the airlines.
Once the industry had reopened after the worst of the pandemic was over, national available seat capacity recovered to about 1.2 million seats, up from zero during the pandemic. However, following the liquidation of Comair, the number of seats plummeted back down to about 900,000. The domestic air travel market had lost approximately 9,000 seats per week, it was estimated by some industry leaders.
The domestic air travel industry has been in a state of considerable turmoil ever since Comair went into business rescue before being liquidated, and since airlines like Mango and SA Express ceased operations. Comair was the parent company of both British Airways in South Africa and the popular Kulula. For the near future it seems flights will remain limited, putting pressure on seat capacity. The domestic airlines all implemented plans to increase seat capacity over the festive season, with some bolstering their fleets by acquiring additional aircraft. They also aim at increasing their fleet size and seat capacities as of early 2023.
While constrained capacity versus a rapid escalation in demand has pushed up domestic flight prices, the other big culprit has been the cost of jet fuel, which more than
doubled in 2022. Shortages have also been experienced leading to, for instance, the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) rationing jet fuel stocks at Cape Town International Airport. That placed serious constraints on aircraft and passenger movement in and out of Cape Town last year.
The bottom line therefore is that while demand for airline seats has raced back to pre-pandemic levels, airlines simply haven’t been able to keep up with this demand after the end of the pandemic lockdown and the demise of several local airlines. Now local airlines are rushing to increase their fleets and seat capacity to meet the demand and bring prices down, but misjudging or over-estimating this demand, could have dire, costly consequences.
Apart from the already-mentioned additional aircraft and capacity introduced by SAA on local and regional routes, the following is or has already been happening:
• FlySafair will be adding six additional Boeing 737-800 aircraft at the end of April with each adding 35,000 more seats per month.
• Airlink has already introduced several new domestic and regional routes while it also acquired a 40% stake of Fly Namibia, and is acquiring more aircraft.
• CemAir increased its fleet size by around 20% with new aircraft in the first half of 2022 and at the time of writing was planning on bringing more aircraft into
operation in line with its aims of regional expansion.
• Lift, that has till now operated only between Johannesburg and Cape Town, is also bringing in new aircraft and has started operating its new Durban route.
Industry experts expect that the capacity gap will be sufficiently filled within the first quarter of 2023.
Meanwhile other exciting things are happening in the domestic and African air travel space. Emirates airline is expanding its South African operations because of the current demand and supply situation. It plans to again ramp up operations in South Africa to 42 weekly flights between Dubai and the airline’s three South African gateways - Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban – and hopes to return to its pre-pandemic 49 weekly flights by May this year.
Meanwhile African airline traffic has recovered to around 85% of pre-Covid 2019 levels, with capacity having been restored to above 80% of 2019 levels. The continent’s carriers have also restarted operations on 99% of their 2019 routes, while eight African airlines were reported as now operating more international routes than they had before the pandemic. And despite the pressures from high fuel prices, African airlines have steadily been reducing their losses. While there is still some distance to go, it does however, seem like South Africans will again soon be taking to the skies in pre-pandemic numbers.
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FAILING LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ARE ADVERSELY AFFECTING BUSINESS AND INVESTMENTImage by falco from Pixabay
Back in July 2021, Deputy Minister of Finance Dr David Masondo, delivered an important message to the Metropolitan Municipalities Roadshow on the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan in Pretoria.
Basically, he told the municipalities that, as South Africa sought to recover from the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic and implement the recovery and growth plan, there were going to be many economic opportunities available to the country, but that municipalities first had to get their own chaotic affairs in order for these opportunities to be realised.
He made a strong plea to especially metropolitan municipalities to create a conducive business environment to enable investments.
“There are economic opportunities, which can be explored by private sector institutions within the area of your jurisdiction. However, these opportunities heavily rely on your (municipalities) capacity to provide bulk and connector infrastructure to enable such investments,” Masondo told the gathering.
With those few words Dr Masondo touched on the raw nerve of one of South Africa’s three biggest challenges – crime, electricity and local government. Or rather, dysfunctional local government.
local government and the services it provides are of vital importance. Unfortunately, in South Africa local government for the biggest part is discouraging investment and business rather than facilitating, attracting and serving it.
The very comments made by Masondo in his speech demonstrated once again that national government is fully aware of the problems but seems unable to fix it, despite numerous plans and programmes.
Pointing out that typically there are a number of approval processes that have to be completed at the metro municipality level to enable private sector institutions to invest, Dr Masondo said: “Thus, the metros need to create a conducive business environment through streamlining and ensuring more efficient internal business processes that interface with the private sector.”
“Such business processes relate to supply chain management, issuing of business permits, responding to customer complaints, issuing of rates and services accounts, development approval processes, issuing of construction permits and rates clearance certificates and ensuring electricity connections,” he said.
Need one even point out that in many municipalities those are almost non-existent services, or they are so backlogged and delayed that many investors and businesses become totally disheartened. But, at least central government has tried to engage municipalities in remedying this.
Together with the World Bank, government has introduced the Ease of Doing Business project, which drives the reforms at national and subnational level to make the country more competitive and business friendly. This led further to the Sub-National Doing Business reforms being rolled out in partnership with the metros as a core component of the broader programme.
A major component of this reform process is the optimisation and automation of metro business processes in order to reduce time, cost and the numbers of procedures businesses are subjected to. But this is where metros – and other municipalities – have been failing. Dr Masondo went on to describe the problems experienced at local government level.
The poor state of the majority of municipalities in South Africa, with many being close to collapse, and their inability to provide services, is well documented. It’s also commonly accepted that for any business – from the largest conglomerate to a small family business -to be able to invest and launch business operations in any jurisdiction, a well-functioning
“From our engagements with yourselves, we have identified two major constraints on metro performance in this regard. First, are the metro internal supply chain management (SCM) processes, which are lengthy and tedious. Secondly, it is owing to the criminal elements which have mushroomed under the disguise of 30% requirements of the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA),” he said.
That was more than a year ago. It highlighted only some of the problems and certainly not all of them. Even so, what has changed since Masondo made that speech? The answer is, nothing.
In fact, South Africa’s municipalities have gone from bad to worse, with only a handful of exceptions of which most are in the Western Cape. Many municipalities in South Africa are unable to deliver basic services like supplying households or businesses with water or fixing badly potholed roads. Many municipalities are constantly facing “service delivery protests” by angry residents who often further destroy already poorly maintained infrastructure. Backlogs in issuing all manner of permits and approvals are stifling businesses. Many municipalities either don’t spend their budgets or spend it irregularly or wastefully. The issuing and administering of tender contracts are mired in corruption.
Very few municipalities are able to secure clean audits from the Auditor-General. In many municipalities criminal gangs falsely using the 30% procurement requirement are terrorising developers and construction firms and destroying build projects, often colluding with municipal officials or local councillors.
Other problems include
• the slow pace of capital spend because of a lack of a project pipeline at municipalities
• there is a failure to target and invest in infrastructure that can unlock private investment
• there is a dire need to reduce the ever worsening unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure
• credit ratings have turned negative in view of these issues and cities are struggling to borrow
• high personnel turnovers at executive level have negative consequences
• at the political level there is much instability especially where multi-party coalitions are governing
South Africa has 278 municipalities made up of eight metropolitan municipalities, 44 district municipalities and 226 local municipalities. They are responsible for growing local economies, facilitating development, and providing infrastructure and services.
In September last year, senior National Treasury officials shocked Parliament when they told MPs that 151 municipalities out of a total of 278 (55% of municipalities) were on the brink of collapse, while 43 had already collapsed and required urgent intervention to rescue them.
They were briefing members of Parliament on local government underspending in respect of the Municipal Revenue Management Improvement Programme (MRMIP) and progress on the implementation of the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS). These are two further programmes devised to assist local government. Among other things they also told the MPs that there were 175 municipalities that had been identified that are in financial distress, and that these municipalities may be on the brink of a crisis. Making matters even worse, it was disclosed that a total of 219 municipalities meet criteria suggesting financial problems and eminent crises with service delivery failures. And the 151 municipalities on the brink of collapse were deemed ‘bankrupt and insolvent’, and were unable to pay creditors and third parties, including the South African Revenue Service and pension funds.
While many municipalities are themselves in debt, owing their creditors like Eskom and water boards just under R90 billion, many are in turn owed money by their customers… to the tune of R255 billion.
Several attempts have been made to improve the performance of municipalities by introducing various programmes, among others –
• The District Development Model (DDM) which calls for collaborative planning at district and metropolitan level jointly by all government entities across all three tiers of government, as well as budgeting and capacitating these districts and resulting in a single strategically focussed One Plan for each of the 44 districts and 8 metropolitan geographic jurisdictions in the country. These processes are centrally controlled and have given rise to strong suspicions that they will become vehicles for the governing party’s focus on centralised political and economic control, more than simply aiming to improve local government functioning and service delivery.
• The Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTAS) which was introduced as a government programme of action and a blueprint for better service delivery aimed at responsive, accountable, effective and efficient local government - it failed to have much of an impact.
• The Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) which aims to eradicate municipal infrastructure backlogs in poor
communities to ensure the provision of basic services such as water, sanitation, roads and community lighting.
• The Community Work Programme (CWP) which is government initiative aimed at mobilising communities to provide regular and predictable work opportunities at the local government level.
• The Local Economic Development (LED) imitative through which the economic potential of municipal localities is intended to be developed by enhancing macro-economic growth through increased local economic growth, employment creation and development initiatives within the context of sustainable development.
Another initiative set up to assist municipal government is the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent which is mandated to provide immediate support to municipalities struggling with infrastructure delivery by facilitating the deployment of engineers, scientists and technicians to those municipalities, and providing oversight.
By offering technical advice, the agent must support and strengthen the capacity of municipalities to provide access to basic services, exercise their powers, and perform the functions required to develop, maintain and operate municipal infrastructure. It also aims to improve the municipal management of infrastructure contracts, procurement and construction. In 2021 the Agent aimed to train 130 learners, 150 graduates and 250 municipal technical officials per year to improve municipal capacity and assist 90 municipalities in developing spatial development frameworks with a total budget of R359.7 million.
While releasing the 2020-21 consolidated general report on the local government audit outcomes, Auditor-general (AG) Tsakani Maluleke indicated that the deterioration in local government continues. “The lack of improvement in municipal outcomes is an indictment on the entire local government accountability ecosystem, which failed to act and arrest the decline that continued to be characterised by service delivery challenges in municipalities,” said Maluleke.
Maluleke emphasised the need to strengthen basic financial and performance management disciplines, and to safeguard and maintain municipal infrastructure to prevent mismanagement, transgressions, nonperformance, fraud and financial loss. “Unfortunately, these issues persist,” she noted. Only 28% of municipalities submitted quality financials for audit purposes, and just 11% received clean audits.
And when delivering his first budget in February last year, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said that while national economic growth is anchored in strong local economies which are
reliant on an effective local government, the country was struggling with the formidable challenge of an increasing number of dysfunctional and financially distressed municipalities.
Godongwana said in order to turn this around, the National Treasury, in partnership with the Department of Cooperative Governance, was harnessing local government support mechanisms to intensify targeting interventions for increased impact from extensive capacity building under the accountant general. This, he said, would include programmes to improve municipal audit outcomes with a specific target on those with the highest levels of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure to direct intervention in terms of Section 139(7) of the Constitution.
In 2022 it was revealed that almost all municipalities have aging and dysfunctional water infrastructure unable to do the job required of them. The Department of Water and Sanitation stated that poor maintenance and operations caused an average 40% (between 26% and 60%) of water to be lost before it reached end users. In many towns across the country refuse is not being collected; broken, overflowing sewage pipes are not
repaired; and potholes are not filled, making streets and roads extremely hazardous for traffic, to name but a few. Minister Godongwana also told Parliament that during the current 2022/23 financial year, the National Treasury, in partnership with local government, would implement five township economic development strategies. It would also identify and approve 20 catalytic projects in spatially targeted areas within metropolitan cities. Furthermore, he said strategies would be implemented in cities and rural towns to provide technical support to strengthen infrastructure planning, delivery capacity and to support spatial transformation and inclusive developments.
Previous attempts at turning municipalities around have failed. Will the latest initiatives achieve what none could before? We will have to wait and see. But in the meantime, the state of local government in South Africa, coupled to other highly discouraging developments such as high crime, extremely unreliable electricity, and a number of questionable policy decisions, are keeping much-needed new investments at bay, while making it hard for businesses to survive.
Geopolitical shifts and tensions, the war in Ukraine, anticipated food shortages and rising prices, the energy crisis, a high inflation environment, US mid-term elections, an extended period of British political and economic uncertainty, and a looming global recession have all played their part in causing considerable turmoil in the markets in 2022. And it’s not over yet, perhaps not by a long shot.
Global inflation has risen, first sparked by the extensive stimulus measures governments and central banks implemented during the Covid pandemic. The surge in demand that followed had to face supply-side constraints as lockdowns took their toll on supply chains. This was followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions against Moscow, which added to the inflationary pressures and the relative turmoil.
In times of such uncertainty, investors usually seek safe-haven opportunities, such as gold, or industrial commodities, and yes, property.
Domestically, however, the housing market has experienced something of a slowdown in 2022, even if modestly so. This is reflected in relatively softer demand amid higher living costs and deteriorating affordability, states FNB’s Property Barometer for October 2022. Average house price growth dropped to 3.3% in 3Q22, compared to the 3.8% in 2Q22 and 3Q21.
So, is this a good time to invest in property, and what might the outlook be for 2023? To find out we asked John Loos, property economist and sector strategist at FNB Commercial Property Finance for his views regarding the outlook for the domestic property market in 2023.
In a nutshell, the word that sums it up, is “slowing”, says Loos.
“Viewing sales activity ratings emanating from recent FNB Estate Agent and FNB Commercial Property Broker Surveys, the three major commercial property classes - industrial, retail and office - as well as the residential market, have all shown declines off post-2020 lockdown highs, as 2021 progressed.
“I believe that we can attribute this weakening property demand to a renewed weakening in the economy following a prior postlockdown recovery, with rising global and local interest rates and inflation exerting increasing pressure on the economy while rising interest rates also directly impact the cost of servicing mortgage debt.
Looking at expectations in the different categories of the property market for 2023, Loos says that with interest rate hikes expected to continue until early 2023, he expects 2023 to be an overall mildly slower property year on the sales front for the three major commercial property classes as well as for residential property.
“While all major classes are expected to be slower in terms of sales, I would expect industrial and residential property sales to be the relative outperformers, retail property slightly weaker, and office property the underperformer,” he says.
The much touted ‘new normal’ of a post-Covid world also comes into play. “While all classes are affected by interest rate hiking and economic slowdown, office property has the added challenge of very weak demand as many companies have been scaling back on space requirements, with remote work becoming a bigger part of office working life compared to pre-Covid-19 days.”
Turning to the residential rental market, Loos believes this will be a stronger market in 2023 than 2022, with the recent residential rental market recovery continuing into 2023 on the back of interest rate hiking.
“Interest rate hiking often encourages a portion of aspirant home buyers to postpone their purchase, with the rental option being preferred amongst a group of them. This can boost rental demand in the short run. I would thus expect further decline in residential rental vacancy rates and higher rental growth rates in 2023,” he says.
Asked if it will be a buyer’s or seller’s market in 2023, Loos says it’s debatable what those are, believing it to be a continuum. The office market is significantly oversupplied, he says, so it could perhaps be classified as a serious buyer’s market, but not so yet for industrial or residential, two markets that are at present still reasonably well balanced.
“But I believe all the major markets are shifting gradually in the direction of the buyer as they soften.”
On the question as to the direction in which property prices will move, he believes it’s possible that office property values will decline in 2023, but retail, industrial and residential property values are more likely to rise at low single-digit rates. These rates are not expected to keep pace with general inflation in the economy, thus translating into further value declines in “real” (inflation-adjusted) terms, meaning that in effect the multi-year correction in property values continues.
Turning to the impacts of recent and current global events, Loos says that high global inflation and rising interest rates are driving a global economic weakening heading into 2023, while local high inflation and rising interest rates further add to South Africa’s economic softening and the cost of mortgage credit servicing.
He says the impact on property demand comes from both a softening economy as well as rising interest rates. The surge in global inflation was started by Covid-19 lockdowns across the globe, causing major supply chain disruptions, and was then made worse by the impact of the Ukraine conflict, along with sanctions imposed on Russia. This resulted in driving up global energy and food prices, two factors that have become the key drivers of South Africa’s recent surge in CPI inflation rate and thus of its interest rates.
When comparing trends to pre-Covid levels, Loos says that prior to the recent slowdown in property investor/buyer demand, he believes that residential and industrial markets may have recovered to stronger levels than those that prevailed shortly before the Covid lockdowns.
The retail market responded similarly, while the office property
sector remained significantly weaker than at pre-lockdown levels. The residential market benefited from the major interest rate cuts early in 2020, and demand strengthened sharply following the hard lockdowns. Industrial property benefited from logistics and warehousing space being geared up for significantly greater online retail, which got something of a boost thanks to the lockdowns, he says.
“Along with office space, the smaller hotel property sector has also not fully recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels. The household sector took a financial knock in 2020, and holiday travel has been on the backburner for a portion of them while they revive their finances. At the same time, improved online business interactions – zoomification - have lessened the need for business travel compared to pre-Covid days.”
Also on the more negative side, Loos concurs that real house prices have been declining since around 2016, and “given our forecasts of anaemic economic growth in the coming years we expect real price decline to continue”.
We ask Loos about political impacts on the property sector, for instance, such as the dreaded Expropriation Bill which was finally passed in the National Assembly in September 2022 (not to be confused with the currently shelved attempts to amend the Constitution to allow for expropriation without compensation).
“My perception is that in the commercial and residential property markets, fears of expropriation are not a significant influence on these markets. Those fears seem more prevalent
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in agriculture property markets. The bigger concerns in commercial and residential property revolve around the state of local government management, which is driving significant ‘semigration’ to regions that work better and offer more appealing lifestyles,” he says.
“In addition, the general state of economic and other management in South Africa has been driving significant emigration rates too. But I’ve perceived the drivers to be more about general management of infrastructure and services, and factors such as high crime rates…. more so than the expropriation issue specifically. Hence the significant semigration rates of households and businesses alike to regions that are perceived to ‘work better’ in various ways.” On the question whether financial institutions are still keen to extend credit to buyers, at competitive rates or not, he says he believes they are.
“I don’t perceive any significant change in credit appetites in either the commercial or residential markets in recent times. It seems very much business as usual. I’m not talking for FNB specifically but my perception of the market in general.”
What types of property and in which areas in the country is the market most active and buoyant, we ask him.
“I think that the Western Cape is the current outperformer. Of late, our surveys of sales activity in the commercial and residential markets have shown the City of Cape Town Metro to be the strongest (we only survey major metros), and there has been a lot of semigration “noise” in the southern Cape and up the West Coast. On the weakest side, Greater Johannesburg appears to have been battling, with the likes of eThekwini Metro somewhere in the middle.
“eThekwini has been interesting. Its residential surveys have returned weak levels following on the unrest in 2021 and the more recent floods. But its commercial markets still appear to have held up better than Greater Johannesburg.”
With these things in mind, will there be more pitfalls and political shocks to be expected in 2023?
Shocks cannot be predicted, he answers, but adds that “we do seem to be in a more turbulent period with some form of major political change developing…. via an era of uncertain coalition politics”.
“During such a period the economy is likely to remain mediocre at best. Economic uncertainty is enhanced by the reality that much infrastructure…be it transport or power supply to name but two….is reaching the end of its lifespan, and maintenance and replacement levels are weak. How bad does the electricity crisis get before it turns? The ports? Many local governments? I’m not sure anyone has the answer.
“But the KZN unrest was perhaps an indication of what can happen to property in volatile times when tensions run higher, and such events are not easily predictable. All I can say is that I believe that this environment is likely to sustain the ongoing real property value correction that started back around 2016.”
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An extremely high unemployment rate is quite correctly deemed to be one of the biggest challenges facing South Africa. The shocking statistics and news articles have become an accepted part of South Africans’ daily staple diet of bad news. But take heart - all is not doom and gloom.
In fact, a thorough, deep survey of our unemployment landscape reveals that an astonishing amount of work is being done and much money is spent on bringing the country’s youth actively into the economic fold through training and employment schemes. Why this seems to fall through the cracks going unnoticed, is because the efforts of different entities are not being coordinated and aligned, and no proper central record or register is being kept of all that is being done. One hand simply does not seem to know what the other is doing in many, if not most cases.
Meanwhile, the ANC government has dismally failed to meet its targeted unemployment rate of 14% by 2020, a goal it had set as part of its 2012 National Development Plan (NDP). In fact, by the end of 2022, on a list of 82 countries tracked by Bloomberg, South Africa had the third highest unemployment rate.
The latest unemployment figures available from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) are those published.
In its Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the third quarter of 2022 (Q3 2022. It put the overall unemployment figure (narrow definition) at 32.9%, an improvement from 34.5% in Q1 and 33.9% in Q2. The expanded definition of unemployment, which also takes into consideration discouraged work seekers which the narrow definition excludes, similarly showed a percentage point improvement in Q3 to 43.1% from 44.1% in Q2.
But the bigger shock was again provided by the figure for youth unemployment, which stood at 45.5% for those aged between 15 and 34 (narrow definition) – a figure that’s even higher than the overall national unemployment definition using the expanded definition. For many, that represents a ticking time bomb and an almost unassailable problem for our future economic trajectory.
Critical questions are also being asked about highly flawed education and training systems that are not adequately preparing young people for employment. Yet many of those who are well qualified and have diplomas and degrees in different disciplines, say these are proving useless as they too cannot find work. Their options seem to be despair or moving overseas.
But while we seem to know the devastating statistical scope of our youth unemployment problem some critical questions need to be asked. Is it all that bad as the statistics make out, or is it even worse? What is being done to address the problem?
Are we looking at the correct solutions? How do we know who is doing what, when and where and if we are doing the right things?
The generally accepted wisdom is that accelerated economic recovery and sustainable development and growth – implying plenty of new foreign direct investment – are the key to solving our massive unemployment headache. However, while this is indeed a major component of solving this problem for the long term, it does not represent the full remedy required or cover all the necessary bases.
To begin with, the creation and filling of more jobs cannot wait until economic recovery has been completed and sustainable growth and development takes off on the back of a wave of assumed new investment, especially when it comes to youth unemployment. By that time the ticking bomb could well have exploded.
To avert such tragedy, a fast-tracked two-pronged approach is required. Firstly, programmes and initiatives aimed at achieving immediate relief need to be implemented, placing as many young people as possible in jobs or in skills training as soon as possible. Secondly, accelerated economic recovery is needed as quickly as possible to achieve sustainable growth and job creation over the long term, preceded by long overdue structural economic reforms, government facilitation, foreign buy-in and investment, and sustainable higher growth levels.
A third vital component requiring urgent attention relates to education, skills development, a well-functioning apprentice system, and workplace mentorships. A troubled education system urgently needs fixing. Poorly conceived transformation and empowerment strategies are also not helping to ease these problems.
Furthermore, corrective attention is needed to stem the flow of premature school-leavers. According to Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke, as many as 50.1% of the country’s 7.9 million unemployed people in the first quarter of 2022, had education levels below matric. Many of these are simply unemployable except perhaps in low-paid menial jobs. But the sad fact is that the bulk of these people will probably never in their lifetimes be employed in full-time sustainable jobs in the formal sector.
Also, by the beginning of 2021 approximately 3.3 million (32.4%) of the 10.2 million persons aged 15–24 years at the time, were not in employment, education or training – that is one in three.
As part of the plans to bridge the gap between skills, qualifications, experience and jobs, President Cyril Ramaphosa and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande announced in 2022 that future skills development will involve an apprenticeship based TVET college system similar to the dual system in Germany. In April the Department of Higher Education and Training started placing 10,000 unemployed TVET graduates in workplaces in this regard. It may be little, and it may be late, but it is a significant step in the right direction.
Which brings us to a fourth dimension of the youth unemployment problem – the need for entrepreneurial self-employment and growing the small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) business sector. This is in itself a big problem, and one that has been neglected by government.
Already back in 2012 the National Development Plan (NDP) paid much attention to these matters and offered strategies and plans for achieving accelerated inclusive economic growth and development, with a target date of a prosperous new South Africa being reached by 2030. Sadly, ten years have already passed with very little implementation of the NDP to date.
Nonetheless, experts seem to agree that sustained economic growth and development is the one sustainable solution to our unemployment problem. The proof was provided during South Africa’s golden years from 2004 to 2008 when four consecutive years of economic growth above 5% annually was achieved, expanding the economy by 25%, and causing unemployment to fall from 28% to 21.5%... the lowest it has ever been in the democratic era.
That period of high, sustainable growth and lower unemployment came to a sudden end in 2008 with the global financial crisis, later exacerbated by the state-capture and corruption nightmare and the debilitating Covid-19 pandemic and other troubles. So where to now?
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The government has a recovery and growth plan, and a tentative start has been made with minor structural reforms, but arguably this is by far not enough, and not fast enough. However, as mentioned at the outset, all is not doom and gloom and plenty of work is already being done, mostly in the area of youth training and employment. If one cares to look around.
There is a myriad of people, companies, government departments and organisations that are already actively tackling the youth unemployment problem. These include, for example, the Presidency’s youth employment initiative, the tax incentive scheme, the Jobs Fund and the Youth Employment Service, and multiple schemes and programmes driven by business entities. As a small sample, just a drop in the bucket really, consider the following initiatives:
• The Youth Employment Service or YES is a South African not-for-profit organisation that works with more than 1,900 companies, has created more than 79,000 work opportunities in a period of three years, and has injected R4.4 billion into the economy through youth salaries, all without any government funding.
• The Department of Basic Education last year launched a
program to employ over 287,000 unemployed youth aged 18-35 as student assistants and teacher assistants across South Africa, with the minimum qualifying requirement being that candidates receive a government grant or are studying and must be South African.
• Telkom has partnered with the business-driven YES initiative to provide 499 South African youths access to job opportunities, learn future-fit skills in the evergrowing information and communications technology (ICT) sector, and contribute to their communities.
• Skills Empire is a youth development company funded by corporates that places young, qualified people between the ages of 18 and 30 in programmes aimed at them gaining work experience and bridging the gap between job availability and unemployed youth.
• The company Servest employs over 18,000 people of whom 25% are youths aged between 18 and 29, and now plans to increase its youth employment component to 50%.
• In this year’s state of the nation address President Ramaphosa announced that the government was working
closely with the global business services (GBS) sector –including youth skills enhancement - and was “on track” to create 500,000 jobs over the next few years.
• The D epartm ent of Home Affairs is recruit ing 10,000 unemployed young people for the digitisation of paper records, enhancing their skills and contributing to the modernisation of citizen services.
• 50,000 work opportunities using the ca pability of organisations beyond government, in areas such as urban agriculture, early childhood development, public art and tackling gender-based violence.
• Government launched its Employment Tax Incentive (ETI) in 2014 which reduces the cost of hiring young people by allowing employers to pay less Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) tax on behalf of qualifying employees.
• According to Business Process Enabling South Africa (BPESA) the GBS sector created more than 50,000 cumulative new jobs from January 2018 up to the second quarter of 2021, while a target has been set to create between 250,000 and 500,000 cumulative new jobs in the GBS sector over the next 8 years.
• Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa has spent more than R105-million on its Bizniz in a Box (BiB) initiative, aimed at transforming aspirant entrepreneurs into fully-fledged business owners, and recently also on its Study Buddy Fund (SBF) – to date over 700 entrepreneurs across the country have benefitted while the SBF has enabled 55 young people from 14 host communities to access tertiary education.
• The Salesian Institute Youth Projects’ Waves of Change program provides education and job training to at least 200 youth between the ages of 18 and 35 each year to become seafarers.
• The Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) has established a number of projects to support job creation and enterprise and skills development for disadvantaged groups of women and youth.
• The North West government is facilitating an initiative whereby 200 unemployed youths, including those getting UIF grants, have been given the opportunity to enter the hospitality industry and become part of the country’s labour force as chefs, cooks, baristas and table attendants.
• The Citi Foundation has partnered with TechnoServe in
investing over R14 million into a four-year programme designed to assist 270 young men and women in the townships of Durban, Cape Town and Gauteng to gain economic independence through their Youth Ideas Development Programme.
• Since April, the Department of Higher Education and Training has been placing 10,000 unemployed TVET graduates in workplaces.
There are literally thousands of such employment and training schemes being implemented or planned, varying greatly in size, duration and scope. The problem seems to be that nobody is centrally monitoring and coordinating all of these projects. Currently there is no system in place to centrally record and coordinate these schemes or measure their actual impact in respect of reducing the numbers of unemployed people - a central flaw in the country’s efforts to combat the unemployment scourge. This should, however, not involve more centralised government control, but simply central monitoring, coordination, and facilitation
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With 2022 now behind us, we can reflect on a tumultuous year. As I like telling my favourite gogo here in the village, like for many people around the world, this has been a tough year for many South Africans, for those of you who didn’t know.
By now I am sure you have enjoyed some rest and peace over the festive period – we all deserved it. I sure did – above all. As you know, it’s been a roller coaster year full of dramatic events. And boy, am I relieved 2022 is over – I almost did not make it! And Eskom and that backstabbing Lindiwe Sisulu didn’t have anything to do with it.
I must say it was touch and go there with that darned Phala Phala report. Of course, that business is not yet done, but at least I made it through the ANC’s national conference and getting re-elected as president without Parliament trying to impeach me. How was that for some nifty political-legal footwork? Sometimes a few threats can also do the trick.
Back to some less important business though. In the first half of the year, we experienced devastating floods
in parts of KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and North West – or perhaps I should say “they” experienced it. The Russia-Ukraine conflict sent shockwaves through global energy and food markets, leading to supply chain disruptions and rising prices that continue to be keenly felt, including in South Africa, but not by us in government. And we are still rooting for Russia and Putin but don’t tell anyone as we are supposed to be neutral. The energy crisis too has caused misery for South African households and businesses, but of course once again it excludes us ministers and other political fat cats who live in state-protected bliss with all our lights on. More about that in a moment.
With this difficult year having passed and several –no, make that ‘many’ or even ‘all’ - challenges still not resolved, we need to keep closely focused on what needs to be done to make next year better. But we have good reason to believe things are getting better. Our great country will rise above adversity, as it has done so many times in the past, unlike my party, the ANC, that just sinks deeper and deeper into the mud. Nevertheless, as I have promised you every year for the past 5 years, we are improving things by the day. You be the judge.
Two years ago, when we confronted the fear and
uncertainty of COVID-19, I said that if we act decisively and together, the pandemic will pass. It has indeed passed, as will the current misfortunes we are experiencing. Misfortunes like Phala Phala or the ANC. Who knows, my fellow voting South Africans, you may just get lucky in 2024.
We are more than capable of bringing about the recovery our country needs. The recovery of our economy and society is underway. Just call Cyril. He always knows what to do. Despite the electricity challenges, the economy is recording growth. In the third quarter of this year real GDP grew by 1.6%, and the size of the economy now exceeds pre-pandemic levels. Major industries and sources of job creation such as agriculture, transportation, construction and finance recorded increased economic output. That is, if you can consider the contributions made by the criminal mafia networks holding these sectors hostage. Yeah, that can sometimes be a problem, but not mine. It’s Bheki’s problem, but I am sure Bheki has a plan and will one day get around to dealing with them, if he lives that long. Because being police minister and manning road blocks to confiscate people’s booze and cigarettes or posing for the news cameras is high-stress stuff.
But in the meantime, you know, here where I am relaxing and preparing for the next bucket of insidious broth my enemies in the ANC (and outside of it) will be throwing at me, I must say it’s been very peaceful, and everything is working as it should. The lights are on, the exotic animals are grazing peacefully, more buyers from Sudan and Saudi Arabia will soon be arriving with suitcases full of dollars in cash, there’s meat and plenty of beer stocked up, my blue light convoy is at the ready to take me to parties and braais, and life is just great. And boy, did I have a blast criss-crossing London in the King’s carriage! But Charlie sure will have to brush up on his use of African languages – that was a bit awkward and gave me the giggles. (If you wondered, Charlie and I are on first-name terms; this ‘your majesty’ business is just for show, and he calls me Cirrie or Prez.)
But back to important things here at home. I am truly sorry that your lights are not on, or for the meat that rotted in your freezer as Eskom continuously cut the power, or that on most nights you had to eat uncooked raw food because there was no power (that is, if you had any food at all), or that your Christmas turkey went off and your trifle pudding flopped because of the heat, or that your small business into which you had poured your life’s savings had to permanently shut its doors because loadshedding killed it. But what can I say? What can I do? It is what it is, hey. And it luckily doesn’t affect me or any of the other ministers in my government.
But at least we are now rid of that De Ruyter guy and we can get back to Eskom business as usual. I must say I was a bit worried about the poor optics it would have created if a white CEO managed to pull Eskom out of the mess we in the ANC put it in. But in the end sabotage, cable theft, illegal strikes, corruption, lack of skilled people to keep things running, no money for diesel, poor quality coal (the bit that wasn’t stolen) and Gwede Mantashe all proved too much for him.
Now I am relieved as I can tell the people and Julius Malema, “see, a white guy couldn’t fix that mess!” Eish, this race politics thing in this country – you have to be so careful my friends. Serious.
On that powerless note, I am toying with the idea of giving Eskom to the Chinese to fix. If we put Xi Jinping in charge, well he wouldn’t be white and he also wouldn’t be black, so that niggly problem would be sorted. What a pity we aren’t all Chinese here in South Africa – just think about it. Because then we could truly live up to our ethos of the ANC being a non-racial organisation. But I digress.
If we got the Chinese to come in, they could build us some new power stations super-fast, just like they built those Covid-19 hospitals in less than a week. And as they have done in other African countries, maybe they could throw in a few bullet trains and a new parliament too. The latter we desperately need as ours burnt down a year ago and we haven’t been
able to rebuild or fix it yet. But it’s on the list of my next SONA. That’s one thing about the ANC – no-one can accuse us of ever being in a hurry. Like the TV ad says, we are always going nowhere slowly. That’s our strength.
Finally, one more issue to deal with. Now the ANC elective conference is done and dusted and I still wear my crown – being with Charlie that sort of rubbed off on me – I need to fill the hole left by Fikile and get rid of the backstabbing Lindiwe, Nkosazana and some others. Yes, you’re right – a cabinet reshuffle! The problem is, however, that with all the hidden shenanigans going on in the ANC, things are, well, complicated, and I don’t quite know whom to pick.
So, I have decided to put the selection to the public vote in a competition called, ‘Help Cyril Choose a
New Cabinet’. And the winner will get to spend a weekend at Phala Phala, staying in the Sudanese Businessman’s Suite, going on exotic animal auction drives, and playing monopoly with real dollar bills.
And on that dollarly note my fellow South Africans, I promise you that all our problems will be fixed and 2023 will be a million times better than 2022. Trust me. I have another plan.
With best regards,
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Schools’ unisex policy with kids peeing together will make all equal before the loo, says education minister
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga is hopeful that she will soon be able to introduce her controversial new policy in South Africa’s schools which will require
pupils of different sexes – all 9 of them - to share unisex toilet facilities, Politicus has learnt. While Motshekga sees this as part of transforming South Africa into a sexless society,
her department’s proposal seems to have run into serious opposition from various groups who still value boys and girls farting, peeing and defecating in separate rooms. But Motshekga aint fazed as they say in the movies.
“What’s the fuss,” Motshekga wants to know. “It will save us a lot of money not having to duplicate separate sets of toilets at our schools. And just as we are all equal before the law, we can all now be equal before the loo. My department still has to decide whether all school children will in future be required to wear pants, skirts or an iqoyi, or whether we will design all-new one-size-fits-all unisex outfits for the school children.”
“More savings will also be achieved from not having to employ life skills or sex education teachers anymore – the kids will learn these things in the toilets. We need to eradicate all this shyness and duplication among different sexes and achieve uniform biological parity. I think that’s what it’s called. After all, if you take away that dongle thing that boys have, we will all look the same. Maybe we should seriously start considering cutting those things off at birth. Then we can all pee sitting down and lead the way to a better sexless society,” said the minister at a media briefing called to announce her intended policy.
“It’s all about equality. Our past urinal and defecation practices have always discriminated against those we have called girls or women until now, as they have to squat or sit down, while those we have been calling boys or men can do it standing up against fancy marble troughs or do it in the street or behind a bush. That’s so unfair, so discriminatory.
“With artificial intelligence, artificial insemination, artificial robots,
artificial beef burgers, and artificial what-nots, who needs those dongles any longer anyhow – they no longer serve any purpose,” she added.
“And our government’s National Development Plan is strongly focused on eradicating inequality – which includes inequality between those who have dongles and those who don’t. It’s one of our sustainable development goals.”
At the same media briefing where she announced the proposed new loo policy, Minister Motshekga was asked whether her department had any new plans to improve the matric pass rate, reduce the dropout rate, and iron out the legion of other problems affecting basic education. “Don’t worry about those now, we will sort them out later. We need to first sort out our toilet policy which is so much more important”, Motshekga replied.
Politicus heard a strange but true tale in the power corridors of the Union Buildings the other day. From the donkey’s mouth. Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa’s
plans for the Afrikaans Taal monument and building a 100-metre, R22-million neon flag pole, are both back on the table again… thanks to none other than South Africanborn Hollywood actress Charlize Theron. And of course, thanks also to Mthethwa being as stubborn as a donkey - he never takes no for an answer.
Back in March 2022, Mthethwa first attracted a barrage of criticism when he announced that he planned to rename the Afrikaans Taal (language) monument in Paarl “on the grounds of inclusivity”. He didn’t offer any alternative name proposals and it wasn’t clear at the time who exactly he planned to inclusively include in a renamed giant concrete dildo on a granite hill behind the town of Paarl.
Since then, however, it’s come to light that he would do a Stellenbosch on the taal – wipe it out altogether and transform its monument into one that celebrates Fanagolo instead. (Fanagolo is the taal made up from many different South African languages and is the lingua franca spoken by gold-mine mineworkers ten thousand feet below the ground – indeed the deepest language in the world and just as young and homegrown as Afrikaans, and hitherto without its own monument.)
Nonetheless, needless to say, Nathi’s plan didn’t go down well with quite a few ooms and tannies who told him in no uncertain Afrikaans terms where he could insert his inclusivity. And believe me, if you don’t know Afrikaans and its speakers, you don’t want to be at the receiving end of such a verbal firestorm. It often includes one’s
mother’s unmentionable parts. The idea didn’t sit well in other quarters either, so Mthethwa backed off, it seems, and all went quiet, for a while.
That is, until May 2022. Having had several weeks of idle time on his hands since his Afrikaans monument storm had died down, the capriciously devious genius that is Nathi Mthethwa, came up with a brand-new plan. Now, sports, arts and culture ministers really are redundant relics of the past. These days it’s the pre-early-retirement dead-end sideline such ministers are shunted onto when the president has no other use for them. These sports, arts and culture ministers are not expected to do much to earn their big salaries – they merely have to sit around behind their impressive teak and imbuia desks tinkering away on their iPhones, thinking up outlandish plans to annoy people and flush plenty of taxpayers’ money down the toilet. That’s their job. And that’s just what the inimitable Nathi did.
This time dear Nathi triggered a storm of ridicule and protest when he announced his intention of creating a monster of a flag pole – a 100 meters high pole with a massive
glow-in-the-dark flag on top costing upwards of R22-million in suffering taxpayers’ cash. For what purpose, gasped the people in awe. Simple, said Nathi. It would be his and the ruling ANC’s legacy to the people of South Africa, and it was aimed at fostering social cohesion, he said. The same really as “inclusivity”.
That would go a very long way towards putting food on hungry people’s tables, wiping out endemic poverty, creating jobs, and fixing a country broken by state capture and Covid-19, he seemed to promise. And just like America’s Statue of Liberty, it would stand high and proud as a beacon for the hungry hordes of Africa looking south towards Mzansi, and like the American statue, Nathi’s beacon would tell them, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me…” This undoubtedly prompted the Soweto-based champion of xenophobia, Nhlanhla Lux Dlamini, to immediately launch Operation Dudula to run these arriving hordes into the sea. But that’s another story.
Sadly for dear Nathi, in a video that went viral on social media, President Cyril Ramaphosa didn’t think it was such a good idea. He could be seen telling members of the decidedly non-racial Black Business Council that he had instructed Mthethwa to “cancel that thing” following the backlash from civil society and political parties.
For the second time Mthethwa quietly licked his wounds and skulked off in the night. All went quiet once again on the Mthethwa Front… till November this time. That’s when the Darling of Hollywood, South Africa’s Oscar-winning Charlize Theron stormed onto every
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single social media platform with her discovery and declaration that Afrikaans was an unhelpful, dying language spoken only by 44 people. The entire land fell silent for a few minutes. And then one could hear the unmistakable metallic clicks of a million voorlaaiers being loaded by fuming, would be Charlie assassins, from Thabazimbi in the Voortrekker heartland of the North to Manenberg in the Cape Flats heartland of Kaaps in the South, Kaaps being another (original) version of Afrikaans. Almal was goed die moer in, as they say in Afrikaans.
At this stage, a bit of background on Charlie Theron is required. Her Afrikaans pedigree is rock solid. During the Anglo Boer War, her great-grand-uncle, Danie Theron, was a Boer forces commander who became famous as a master scout and caused the British forces such headaches that the British Commander in Chief, Lord Roberts, called Theron: “the hardest thorn in the flesh of the British advance”, and put a reward of £1,000 on his head, dead or alive. That Danie was eventually bombed to smithereens fighting the Afrikaner Boers’ freedom war. Several generations later Charlize grew up on a Benoni semi-rural smallholding – a meisie van die plotte – in an Afrikaansspeaking family who worked in road construction, in a predominantly Afrikaans-speaking community. Until her mother shot and killed her father. That’s where the story gets a bit tricky.
Charlize and her mother Gerda say Charlize’s father Charles and his brother Danie returned home from a night out drinking. Her father, who she says was “abusive” but who she also says nonetheless never laid a hand on her, started shooting through a door behind which she and her mother were sleeping, so
her mother shot back killing her father, according to Charlize. The state believed ma Gerda’s selfdefence version and she was never prosecuted.
But uncle Danie tells it differently. In his version Charlize’s father became enraged when upon their return home, he and his brother found themselves locked out because of a new lock on the gate. Her father took out his small .22 hand gun and shot the lock off, and upon entering the house, ma Gerda stood waiting, gun in hand. Father Charles, according to Danie, was shot three times in the left arm and a fourth and deadly final bullet hit him from behind as he lay bleeding on the floor. She also shot at Danie who was wounded and ran away in shock.
This version doesn’t quite sound like self-defence…. now does it. But Charlie and Gerda’s version – when several years later they broke their silence - went public in a viral way, backed by Hollywood money, the awe-struck entertainment media, and spin doctors most likely too, and it’s the version the world knows today. Nobody seems interested in Danie’s version. After all, nobody wants a Hollywood star to have a cold-blooded killer for a mom.
Nonetheless, shortly afterwards ma Gerda and daughter Charlie left for the glitter of Hollywood in the US where Charlize made it big, won an Oscar, and they lived the good life ever since. Up until arriving in Hollywood, Charlie had not spoken anything but Afrikaans. To help her acting career, a Hollywood language coach taught her to speak fake American, which nowadays is all she speaks. And she quite obviously no longer counts herself as one of the 44 who speak this dying, unhelpful language.
Don’t be distracted though by the little fact that over 16 million people in South Africa and worldwide speak Afrikaans (Words of the world: the global language system, A. de Swaan, ISBN 9780745627489), or that almost 14% of South Africans speak Afrikaans as their first language, while Afrikaans is the third most commonly spoken native language in the country. Charlie did not let these pesky facts get in her way… and neither did dear Nathi. When he heard what she had to say, the angels in heaven sang to him. Voila! It was just what he needed to revive both his shelved old projects with a big bang.
With Afrikaans soon to be dead and buried like the 44 people who still spoke it, the Taal Monument would soon become obsolete. Naturally that would pave the way for renaming it the Fanagalo Inclusive Monument. And because the monument already had a concrete pole 57 metres high that could be seen all the way from Pofadder – admittedly not Nathi’s original 100-metre pole – there would be no need to build a R22million pole. They could simply affix a neon glow-in-the-dark flag atop the old Afrikaans monument pole! What a stroke of genius, thanks to the Americanised Charlize Theron. By Nathi’s calculation this would kill about 7 monumental flies in one stroke. That then, is our busy sports, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa’s latest mega pole and monument plan, and it won’t cost a cent – all thanks to Carlie Theron. Way to go Nathi, one could hear President Ramaphosa saying, who by this time was facing his own growing woes after thieves stole some dollars from his Phala Phala game farm. Life never becomes dull in sunny South Africa.
As escalating challenges erode profits, the pressure is on for mining organisations to achieve new levels of performance, efficiency and productivity, while maintaining safe and sustainable operations. Digital technology, with advances in sensor, monitoring, networking and real-time predictive applications, is creating a new environment and is making improved engineering efficiency, construction productivity and better safety outcomes a reality in integrated mining
operations. Working together, these technologies can result in next-level performance enhancements throughout the value chain, says Probe Mining Group of Companies CEO Gert J. Roselt.
Through consolidating the mining-orientated offerings within the Probe Group, the Probe Mining Group of Companies has now evolved to offer a comprehensive, strategic array of best-of-breed technologies, products
and data analysis. Our integrated offering incorporates Operation Level 9 collision avoidance systems, the design and manufacture of safety solutions, air quality and gas monitoring, renewable energy, industrial solutions, air power, and other specialised solutions. We further provide auto electrical field services, batteries, spares & parts for off-highway vehicles (OHV) spares related to Komatsu drive systems, OEM harness manufacturing and Electrical Vehicle conversions. With some of the most prestigious clients, the Probe Mining Group of Companies has over 50 years of experience in serving the South Africa and Sub-Saharan African mining industry.
Roselt says visionary mining leaders have realised it’s time to transform how operations are conducted, rather than simply searching for incremental improvements. “We capitalise on the potential of technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), big data and cloud computing to transform operations, better positioning mines to be able to address resource challenges and environmental pressures moving forward. Our investment in new technologies delivers secure and out-of-the-box solutions, including uptime and remote monitoring, for more efficient and accurate exploration of operations. Our intelligent systems combine technology, people and processes to enable feedback loops, defining an organisation’s competitiveness and ability to change the industry landscape.”
According to Roselt, integrated Solutions for Productivity and Safety, have delivered multiple benefits for mining clients, including:
• Highly safe, sustainable and productive operations
• More innovative, future-proof operational models
• Reduced downtime through taking corrective action in advance
• Improved resource and asset use and availability
• Improved mining fleet use and control
• Real-time visibility resulting in enhanced efficiency
• Increased employee productivity
• Reduced cost of ownership
Professional installation and rigorous maintenance are essential to ensure customers experience minimum downtime. Complemented by a Field Services Division, Probe Mining Group of companies offers a fully integrated management solution, including on-site technical testing and implementation of equipment monitoring systems and charging facilities.
The team further views environmental practices as a central component of all planning and development - as providing social, environmental, and economic sustainability guidance. With this in mind, we are proud partners of the #MandelaMining Precinct on The Real-Time Information Management Systems (RTIMS) research programme. “This RTIMS programme aims to improve data sourcing, transmission, storage, dissemination, information management tools, practices, and procedures for mines,” says Roselt.
All Probe Mining solutions i.e.: Automotive Solutions, Integrated Mining Technology Solutions, Industrial Technology Solutions, Renewable Energy Solutions, have proven to be world class leaders. We consistently add best-of-breed brands and solutions to mining, automotive, air, power, and our energy solutions portfolio. “We are intent on continuing to grow the organisation through providing tailored solutions to the market and finding ways to solve customer challenges.”
The Probe Mining Group of Companies Head Office is situated in Germiston, Johannesburg with operations in over 20 locations across South Africa and SubSaharan Africa.
Contact Details: Probe Integrated Mining
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Web: www.probeimt.co.za
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Address: 245 Albert Amon Road, Millennium Business Park, Meadowdale, Germiston, 1614
Vision, tenacity, and hard work are key character traits of entrepreneurs. And it is easy to spot these traits in Adelaide Ruiters.
Ruiters is a serial entrepreneur with a knack for venturing into uncharted terrain for women entrepreneurs. She is driven by her determination to succeed against all odds. Her Zandheuvel Phosphate Mining Project located in Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape is the
world’s only woman-owned phosphate mine, a project of considerable scale and magnitude.
Ruiters can proudly report that all technical chapters for the completion of her bankable feasibility study have been completed, and that the project is indeed very viable. As a majority shareholder in Adelaide Ruiters Mining and Exploration Pty Ltd (ARME) – which is a 51% South African black women-owned mining and exploration company – Ruiters is carving a big name for herself in mining exploration and in the phosphate fertilizer industry, both locally and internationally in an industry that is dominated by established big players.
“Mining exploration is capital intensive, and it is difficult for start-ups to compete against the established entities. But our experience tells us that we have to start from somewhere and build our way up to the top,” says Ruiters.
In an industry in which savvy clients prefer to deal with the established operators, Ruiters advises that credibility is key, especially when you are coming from a previously disadvantaged background and now are competing in these two industries.
“You obviously start by building up a mining portfolio of evidence through applying, acquiring and developing the prospecting rights to prove the mineral resources are economical until you amass the experience and expertise required to develop your prospecting rights into a mining right.”
In a ground-breaking project, ARME has explored for phosphates and other associated minerals for mining and beneficiation of sedimentary phosphates to produce a Direct Application Organic Phosphate Fertilizer in the Saldanha Bay area. Her mining right for the Zandheuvel phosphate mine was recently granted. The Company has successfully completed all technical studies towards a bankable feasibility study for its Zandheuvel Sedimentary Phosphate Mine and Beneficiation plant on the farms Zandheuvel 126, Witteklip 123 Portion 61 and Yzervarkensrug 127 Portion 2 in Saldanha Bay.
The proposed mining site is located adjacent to Lafarge and opposite Mittal Steel Saldanha, 150km from Cape Town and 5km from the Port of Saldanha. The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) is a shareholder in her company as well as the AngloAmerican Sefa Mining Fund. These institutions have helped the company to conduct the exploration drilling, pilot plant studies and a feasibility study to determine the economic viability of producing a direct application organic fertiliser as a cheaper environmentally friendly fertiliser option to South African farmers and farmers across the SADC region.
Agriculture trials were recently conducted to prove the efficiency of the Zandheuvel phosphate concentrate, to be marketed as Zandphos in both the organic and chemical commercial environment. Successful soya beans agriculture trials were conducted, and currently
wheat trials are being conducted. Of significant benefit is the fact that the development of the Zandheuvel phosphates conforms with the IDC’s chemicals value chain goal of developing primary fertiliser molecular inputs, one of which is phosphate.
This allows for efficient component inclusion into the local fertiliser blend. This strategy is aimed at reducing input costs and increasing security of supply, including food security.
“This project couldn’t have come at a better time than now when you factor in the rising demand for fertiliser not only in South Africa but the southern African region as whole. The conflict in Eastern Europe is certain to push up demand. We are grateful for the partnership and funding support from the IDC over the years,” says Ruiters.
Even though the project has yet to come to fruition, it has already created employment and boosted supply network opportunities in the nearby towns of Saldanha Bay and Vredenburg. The new mining project will create approximately 393 jobs in the long term. Ruiters says she wants to thank the IDC, Anglo American, the Department of Minerals and Energy and her Project Managers VBKOM for creating a conducive environment to enable her to come this far.
For more information: Contact Adelaide Ruiters at adelaide@arme.co.za or visit her website at www.arme.co.za
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a. The starting point of my professional journey, and one which I adhere to today is hard work. I was able to enjoy a career in the mining industry because I was doing well at high-school and a large mining house provided a bursary for me to study something in mining. While I was fascinated by the mining industry, which plays such a large part in the South African opportunity, I didn’t necessarily have a career in mining in mind at that stage. I did however realise that it was a great opportunity, so I grabbed it and went on to study geology. On reflection years later, I realised that mining companies can contribute in so many ways for the benefit of various stakeholders. I feel fortunate to be in the position to have this realisation, as it is sadly almost unique for black girl children from rural areas in South Africa to have this experience.
b. The journey has been challenging, and punctuated by good times and tough times, particularly as a woman in a male dominated industry. Over the course of my career, I have had to help force change. In addition to the obvious professional and corporate change required to meaningfully include women in the industry, there were seemingly minor but significant changes that were required for women. An example is that when I started out in the industry basic things like PPE were purely male focussed. One-piece overalls designed for men created difficulties for women, and we needed to change this. We now have two-piece PPE, which makes provides dignity and safety for women in the industry.
c. As part of my journey, I also realised that I needed more than a technical degree if I was going to rise to the greater heights. As such, I decided to complement my geology degree with a business degree, which provided me with a holistic view of the business of mining. Clearly, education can unlock many doors. In addition, I have had very strong mentors, which I am very grateful for. I am a firm believer in the mentor-mentee relationship through different stages of one’s career.
a. I really think that our biggest strength is our people, starting from our leadership team, and in particular our founder, Mr Ndavhe Mareda. Through his vision and under his guidance, we have been able to identify the right people to convert complex opportunities into real successes, like we have done with Koornfontein, which was acquired out of a difficult business rescue process, but now is operational and will be making a great contribution to various stakeholders. One of the lessons I have learnt from Ndavhe is to create strong teams, have belief in them and give them to freedom to build. This has allowed us to be agile and decisive.
b. It also requires us to pay very close attention to detail. Trust is earned, and in any industry, but mining in particular, it is critical that everyone remain focussed and on top of the details. Black Royalty Group prides itself on this aspect
c. I also believe that notwithstanding that we are a relatively new, unique and aggressive mining house, we have managed to build significant resources, and not just from a mining perspective, but also in financial and human capital terms.
3. What goals do you have as CEO
a. We want to continue to build on our successes in South Africa, and to continue to grow our footprint in the rest of Africa across a diverse range of commodities. Ultimately, we want to create a company that stands as a South African champion and has the potential for a future listing.
4. How do you survive and thrive in this business?
a. To survive, I believe that you need to have good relationships, and pursue activities to enhance a healthy mind and body. Without that, it is difficult to apply yourself fully to a very demanding role. Personally, I like to meditate and exercise.
b. To thrive, one must work in a team where there is belief, trust and respect
5. Who or what inspires you?
a. My mother, Makhosi. She is the epitome of resilience and selfless love, having raised my brothers and me in and around KwaZuluNatal. She is a teacher by profession and a dedicated community worker whose example and leadership qualities I seek to draw from and emulate. She has inspired me to be a better individual.
6. What are the current and future trends in your sector?
a. Environmental Social and Governance issues remain at the forefront of the trends in the mining sector. Black Royalty Minerals continues to invest both time and capital in investigating, developing and implementing technology, procedures and practices to be a sustainable and responsible mining house.
b. I believe that we need to continue to work on finding better funding solutions for mining companies and in particular black owned junior miners, which will allow us to meaningfully unlock transformation in the industry
c. Finally, we need to continue to work on finding realistic and sustainable ways to deliver commodities required today, and to develop sustainable practices to deliver commodities of the future. An example of this is how coal has come to forefront following the global geopolitical unrest. Clearly, we need to focus on ways to deliver and use commodities like coal to provide energy in a more sustainable way regarding climate change.
houses to alternatives to reduce OPEX while meeting its regulatory obligations.
That said, it is not only the Carbon Tax Act that is moving the industry towards change; our unreliable grid is seeing mining houses move toward more sophisticated process and control equipment which in turn requires high power quality to ensure these systems run optimally and won’t fail prematurely or frequently, causing downtime.
Additionally, mines require reliable electricity to remote locations where new operations are designed and constructed. Combined with electricity tariff hikes one can understand why mining houses are scrambling to find feasible alternatives.
Like its counterparts across the world, the South African mining industry is an electricity super user. Unsurprisingly, it was one of the first industries that had to comply with South Africa’s Carbon Tax Act, which is driving mining
To counter grid instability, as well as availability, many mining operations are relying on internal power sources such as diesel generators to run operations. Also, mines are bringing renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, into the mix to establish a hybrid energy model of sorts.
PROVIDES A FUTURE-PROOFED, SUSTAINABLE AND RELIABLE
“…mining houses should incorporate the concept of microgrids into their operations.”
Whilst the above does provide some form of renewable energy posture, it unfortunately still relies too heavily on fossil fuels, be it generators and grid supply, to meet daily operational demand.
To truly make the most of our country’s abundance of natural energy resources, in a sustainable manner, whilst reaping the benefits of reliable and quality energy, mining houses should incorporate the concept of microgrids into their operations.
• It harnesses modern renewable generation – wind and solar are widely available, becoming more and more cost-effective, and generally safer to operate than traditional sources.
• Energy storage – comprising battery energy storage systems (BESS) and/or thermal and mechanical methods, storage abilities support a clean energy transition by firming up availability of intermittent power sources and increasing grid flexibility to drive positive outcomes. Moreover, battery storage is becoming increasingly affordable and attainable.
• A dvanced control technologies – such as cloud computing, data analysis and IoT to optimise, autonomously schedule and control energy production and consumption.
• Microgrids allow for self-contained, on-site energy generation from greener sources that can improve a network’s sustainability, reliability, and resilience.
• Facilitating compliance and ESG.
Software and analytics, such as Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Microgrid Advisor need to be utilised to make the most of microgrids and to ultimately help a mine achieve it’s sustainability goals:
• Transparency of consumption – energy visibility is the starting point for decarbonisation, obtaining insights from across the corporate value chain is vital to measuring and controlling what power resources are used.
• Analytics and AI can automate the conversion of data-driven insights into real-time decision making.
• Digital twin technologies enable modelling the characteristics of the mine (demand/load) in order to facilitate predictive shifting of flexible operations to when renewable generation is at peak.
• Ecosystem collaboration that leverages the skills and know-how of end-users, technology partners, and integrators.
In order to forge a future that offers reliable, quality, and sustainable energy, mines should include on-site generation such as microgrids into their energy mix, which is realised by a partnership of energy transition and digital transformation. Ultimately, using on-site energy more efficiently, improves mining processes productivity, reliability, safety, and the expansion of operations.
Monitech is an established and respected Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in safety and monitoring equipment to the African and American mining sectors. For over 28 years, the company has been at the forefront of technological innovation for mine safety equipment, machine and environmental monitoring.
While Monitech’s pedigree stems from Coal mining, their comprehensive range of products, available as EX d and intrinsically safe (IS), are geared for underground and surface applications across different mining sectors. Monitech’s market leadership stems from critical knowledge of the coal mining industry, consistent proven technical abilities, robust system design, comprehensive in-field testing and stringent manufacturing standards. The technology Monitech deploy is proven in some of the most extreme environments on earth.
The Monitech vision is supporting a world class safety culture across all industries they serve. Monitech’s mission is to provide the highest levels of expertise and service for protecting people, property and the environment, while providing value to the sector they operate in. The Monitech suite of products and supporting services includes:
• Methane Detection systems
• Proximity Detection Systems (PDS)
• Water Control and Optimisation Systems
• Dust Monitoring and Dust Management Systems
• Machine Mounted Safety and Monitoring Systems
• Flameproof Equipment
• Monitech is made up of a highly qualified, rich in experience, motivated and dedicated team of best-in-class professionals. This team is a long-standing collaboration of leading engineers, designers, integration specialists, production, in-field technicians, mining specialists and customer relationship managers. Their extensive 24/7/365 no compromise approach includes design, manufacture, installations and maintenance.
Monitech is committed to the ongoing professional and personal development of our employees. Year-on-year initiatives in this area continue to exceed the requirements of the South African Mining Charter.
Monitech establish long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships with other best-in-class OEM companies that share a vision of mining safety and a commitment to product and service excellence. Monitech has partnered with a number of these OEM’s industry leaders in their respective fields. These partners include:
Monitech is the sole African distributor of the Matrix Intellizone Proximity Detection System (PDS), delivering cutting edge full section, leading edge proximity detection solutions to the Southern African Coal mining sector.
Monitech is partnered to Alliance Coal, the 2nd-largest coal producer in the eastern United States. Alliance currently deploys and markets the Monitech Methane Gas System (MGS) to all their operations and across North America.
Monitech and Fletcher have recently reinforced a long-standing partnership, providing direct-to-customer services and sales of Fletcher Roof Bolter parts, sub-assemblies along with specialised custom manufactured equipment.
Monitech is the African strategic partner to Dynamic Resource Solutions (DRS), leading safety equipment specialists in dust suppression systems for underground and surface environments.
The company’s success in implementing and maintaining this Quality Policy has been independently certified to ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Standards.
Contact Details:
+27(0) 11 395 4312
Sales@monitech.co.za
www.monitechmining.com
and project management services including coordination, design, procurement, and construction management and execution ensuring compliance with the client’s brief and requirements. As well as a newly established 100% held subsidiary called Lesedi Renewables Africa.
As a responsible employer, we are dedicated to the advancement of the skills growth of our employees through developing and maintaining a skilled and productive workforce. We pride ourselves in successful and sustainable learnership, apprenticeship, and engineer-in-training programmes which we have been running since 2014.
BRAND PROMISE
BY LEADING THE POWER GENERATION, MINING, AND OIL & GAS INDUSTRIES SINCE 1984
We build relationships, reputations and con dence by combining a can-do attitude with engineering expertise in pursuit of empowering Africa.
• EP&C of the Balance of Plant for Eskom’s four Gas Turbine Power Stations constructed in Atlantis and Mossel Bay in the Western Cape, South Africa.
• Mechanical erection of 14x150MW gas turbines for Siemens and associated turbine halls.
• Since 1990, Lesedi has successfully completed projects across Africa, illustrating our expertise.
• Lesedi has successfully concluded agency agreements for several state of the art products and services such as CONCO System Inc. and Arkema (DMDS).
• Lesedi performs Mechanical Heat Exchanger and Condenser Tube Cleaning as the African distributor for Conco Services LLC based in the USA. Conco has cleaned over 100 million condenser and heat exchanger tubes, making it the number one condenser and heat exchanger performance company in the world.
BRAND PROMISE
• Execution of turnkey engineering projects in the minerals processing and mining industries.
• Through its network of world-class technology partners, Lesedi o ers gas-cleaning and emissions control plants for its clients.
• Lesedi provides systems for the capture of dust, tars, acid mists, SO2 and various other acidic gases and contaminants in the mining sector.
Lesedi achieved preferential bidding status for two biomass projects for the South African RIEPPP (16.5MW - sugar cane & 5MW - wood chip).
• More than 20 projects under development in Africa.
• Our global partner has built over 100 bio-energy power plants, totalling more than 2,650 MW.
• 30 years of upgrade and maintenance projects at Eskom’s Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in Cape Town, South Africa, including over 150 modi cations on the plant.
International maintenance services contracts in England, Brazil, China, France and the USA, resulting in over 75 interventions since 2006.
• Balance of Plant for Eskom’s Medupi and Kusile Power Station, the biggest dry-cooled power stations in the world
• Turnkey Engineering contracts for plant life extension and major refurbishments icluding:
- High frequency power supplies
- Electrostatic precipitator
- Ash handling systems
We build relationships, reputation, and confidence by combining a can-do attitude with engineering expertise in pursuit of empowering Africa.
Over the past 25 years, the Triple 3 Group was the construction partner to numerous successful property development schemes which includes numerous schools, housing developments, industrial and commercial complexes, churches etc. Amongst these is the recently completed R220 million Stadio tertiary education campus in Centurion, South Africa. Triple 3 highlights this project as a major success.
Triple 3 Group is home to an industry-leading offering in the consulting engineering, project management, construction, and turn-key property development industries. Established to provide high-quality results for clients, while also benefiting the wider communities in which it operates, this engineering, project management, and construction specialist is working hard to build lasting relationships.
In Centurion, Triple 3 worked alongside educational investment business Stadio Holdings to build a new 14,000m2 campus designed to provide space for the training of new teachers as well as a school of commerce and other courses. Triple 3 Group was engaged on a design-construct basis and their appointment included project management, engineering
designs for all disciplines as well as construction of buildings and bulk infrastructure. They also played a fundamental role in conceptualising the development and working hand-in-glove with their client Stadio Holdings in fitting out the facility whilst ticking off all the regulatory boxes.
“Our focus is on a holistic project solution that integrates the processes from inception to completion to ensure successful delivery,” says CEO Gawie le Roux.
“As a group founded on the principles of integration, we recognise that each project plays a role in the world beyond our clients’ objectives. We bring a tailor-made and integrated approach to each project through our centralised project management office. In all our project management solutions, we give you peace of mind in knowing that your project is in the hands of industry experts. Our diverse professional network of specialists operates within the built environment, enabling us to offer our clients the best possible solution to any problem. The simplest solutions are often the best. By minimising the contact points involved in a project, we streamline processes and simplify the entire experience.”
The R220 million development was planned pre-Covid and had to change method mid-contract, changing from a large single build to a phased approach. Rather than panicking and allowing the challenges of such a concept to take over, le Roux and team quickly adjusted and worked hard to meet the unforeseen changes the pandemic imposed on the needs of the client.
The R220 million development was planned pre-Covid and had to change method mid-contract, changing from a large single build to a phased approach. Rather than panicking and allowing the challenges of such a concept to take over, le Roux and team quickly adjusted and worked hard to meet the unforeseen changes the pandemic imposed on the needs of the client.
According to Stadio Holdings COO, Johan Human “Triple 3 is unique as they have a whole host of sub-contractors with very specialised skills that are managed very well. I really appreciate their openness as a contractor to partner and not just build something generic. There is a sense of partnership around doing something excellent for the client.
According to Stadio Holdings COO, Johan Human “Triple 3 is unique as they have a whole host of sub-contractors with very specialised skills that are managed very well. I really appreciate their openness as a contractor to partner and not just build something generic. There is a sense of partnership around doing something excellent for the client.
“They have worked extensively in the education industry, and they understand the space in which education takes place. Other Stadio developments are in the pipeline as the company looks to upscale its student numbers over the next few years. Triple 3 will remain the contractor of choice for any complex construction projects.” he adds.
“They have worked extensively in the education industry, and they understand the space in which education takes place. Other Stadio developments are in the pipeline as the company looks to upscale its student numbers over the next few years. Triple 3 will remain the contractor of choice for any complex construction projects.” he adds.
Triple 3 Group is a collective group of companies operating in the built environment across the African continent. We realise your vision by offering tailor-made and integrated project solutions through a centralised project management office.
Triple 3 Group is a collective group of companies operating in the built environment across the African continent. We realise your vision by offering tailor-made and integrated project solutions through a centralised project management office.
Our project management office oversees the three fundamental business silos namely Town Planning, Engineering Services & Bulk Infrastructure as well as Property Development & Buildings.
Our project management office oversees the three fundamental business silos namely Town Planning, Engineering Services & Bulk Infrastructure as well as Property Development & Buildings.
Through our integrated project management solutions, we have access to a diverse professional network of specialists that suit your project’s unique needs. We cut out the unnecessary loops and transitions between service providers, simplifying your project and managing every aspect from one point. In each project, we ensure that you remain an active part of the project as we work in close collaboration with you.
Through our integrated project management solutions, we have access to a diverse professional network of specialists that suit your project’s unique needs. We cut out the unnecessary loops and transitions between service providers, simplifying your project and managing every aspect from one point. In each project, we ensure that you remain an active part of the project as we work in close collaboration with you.
“Our service excellence is made possible through our clientcentric approach, driven by innovation and full collaboration between Triple 3, our unique BE Network and you,” says le Roux.
“Our service excellence is made possible through our clientcentric approach, driven by innovation and full collaboration between Triple 3, our unique BE Network and you,” says le Roux.
Tel: +27 (0) 10 745 1333
+27 (0) 82 445 2073
Email: info@triple3.co.za
Web: www.triple3.co.za
The existence of Infrastructure Master Plans indicates that town or city engineering departments have established infrastructure software information systems and captured existing infrastructure into software computer models. Thereafter, a master planning process would have interpreted town planning projections of future land growth and correspondingly extended the infrastructure computer models to serve these new areas.
These dynamic and annually updated master plans, support structured development of a town or city while providing developers with detailed information on the capacity of existing infrastructure to accommodate new developments.
Consolidate past infrastructure information, in various formats, in a single computer model per infrastructure service
Bene ts of developing master plans
Represent the infrastructure networks in geographic and spatial displays (see photo/image) – on a local computer or online (using an interactive, website-type display)
Determine incremental infrastructure upgrades at speci c locations for speci c developments and projects
Establish an infrastructure investment programme over multi-years with budgets being drawn from the town growth rate and costs from the master plans
www.triple3.co.za
Establish computer hydraulic models (water, sewer, stormwater) and load models (electrical) to determine the ideal performance of infrastructure
Support asset replacement decisions when doing infrastructure asset management
Using customer billing data, determine consumption volumes for water and electricity across a town or city, and the corresponding total water or electrical losses to implement cost savings
Train and transfer knowledge to local authority o cials on optimal management of infrastructure networks and master planning
Photo/image: NO SMALL FEAT: a computer model of over 10 000km of water pipeline and other water infrastructure for a city of +- 3 million people.
All ELECTROTOWER products are designed to SANS and/or equivalent IEC or ASCE standards and the standard product range have all been proof tested by the ESKOM-testing facility. The ELECTROTOWER product range is backed by a superior manufacturing plant with sufficient capacity to do large, rapid roll-outs, as well as a design office equipped with latest CAD and Finite Element Analysis software.
Structa Technology’s Prestanks are hygienically safe, cost effective and a reliable way to store water for commercial sectors, private sectors and even for personalized storage. Temporary or permanent erection at mines, powerstations, building sites, hospitals, water affairs,municipalities, rural communities and agriculture.
Prestank tank capacities range from 1 500 litres to 4.2 million litres designed to SANS 10329:2004 guidelines and SANS structural codes. Our Hot Dipped Galvanising units are easily transported and assembled on even the most remote sites.
Sterling Access was founded in 2006 by the late David John Bodenstein, who started the company with core family values in mind, always staying true to the fair and honest leader he was.
By maintaining these values, the company has since grown into a household name that has exceeded all expectations with regards to quality products, exceptional service & reliability wherever they operate.
Sterling Access’s core business has always been the rental and sales of various new and well maintained mobile elevated work platforms, but this has never stopped them from expanding their area of supply as they established themselves as a full turnkey solutions provider to their clients.
These services include transport services, telescopic handler sales and rentals, forklift sales and rentals, mobile crane sales and rentals, earth moving equipment, qualified operators, a training academy, to only mention a few. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, they were more than willing to rise to the occasion.
Their fleet, which consists of reputable brands, is structured in such a way that they can service a wide variety of clientele throughout South Africa, such as:
•12m to 41m diesel articulated boom lifts
•12m to 43m diesel telescopic boom lifts
•12m to 20m electric articulated boom lifts
•13m to 18m diesel scissor lifts
•8m to 12m electric scissor lifts
•2.5-ton to 5-ton telescopic handlers
•21m to 25m rotating telescopic handlers
•2.5-ton to 12-ton forklifts
•12-ton rollbacks to 75-ton low beds
By utilising the full potential of their fleet, they have managed to service and secure a large portion of the market, such as the mining industry; industrial, commercial & residential construction; oil, gas and the film industry.
Over the past few years, they have pro-actively observed & measured the market to identify the key areas where their services would be required. By doing so, they have expanded their footprint considerably throughout the country by establishing branches in Witbank, which is their head office, Limpopo, North West, Secunda, Western Cape and most recently their Gauteng branch. A large part of the success of these branches is a result of the passionate and driven individuals who look after them. Always focusing on their core values and living by their slogan: The Sky is NOT The Limit!
As a result of their success in the rental sector over the past years, they were fortunate enough to be considered to partner with Haulotte, one of the world’s
leading manufacturers of access platforms and telescopic handlers. After proving themselves as one of the country’s leading access rental companies, they are proud to be the Haulotte official distributor in Southern Africa. Haullote is a French OEM and is currently in the top three of OEM’s in the world and is considered one of the most reliable and technologically advanced brands in the world.
Since then, they have aggressively and with full confidence marketed the Haulotte brand in South Africa intending to make Haulotte a market leader in the Southern African market.
Under the new leadership of the ExCo team who took over from the late Mr David Bodenstein in 2019, the company is rapidly moving forward into a new fresh era, still maintaining their core values but continuously adapting to modern times and evolving into a second to none business, ultimately cementing their presence within the South African market.
Entrusting Sterling Access with your access rentals and sales is an investment in your company’s future.
The Sky Is NOT The Limit! www.sterlingaccess.co.za
MINING SOLUTIONS
PROCESSING
PLANT SOLUTIONS
CUSTOM BUILD SOLUTIONS
HENCON EVY
In the mining industry (gold, platinum, diamonds, chrome, coal, etc.) vacuumation is used to recover precious material from spillages around conveyor belts, trenches, shaft bottoms, sumps, ore passes and feed back into production. Further, these units are also used for sweeping & vamping, fines recovery (Madala sites), clearing of settling dams and confined areas. Vacuumation is integrated with tunnel borers, shaft sinking cutters and continuous miners for the purpose of efficiently transferring material.
These units are custom designed and robust built to withstand the harsh conditions that the mining industry has to offer.
Products:
• Skid mounte d
• Rail mounte d
• Rubbe r wheeled
• L ow profile cassette
• Ce ntralised vacuum system
• Gr avity discharge collectors
• Te ardrop collector
• Continuous discharge collectors
Vacuumation is used to recover production losses due to inefficiencies found in plants. This refers to conveyor belt spillages, production spillages, sump and pit spillage control, dust buildup on horizontal surfaces, general housekeeping, losses by road transport and impact due to weather conditions. Vacuum sweeping of plant roads and cemented surfaces. The valuable material is recovered and reintroduced back into production.
The process of transferring material using vacuumation is spillage- and dust-free in contrast to other commonly used methods.
Products:
• Stationar y
• Mobile
• Truck-mounted
• Ce ntralised vacuum system
• Gr avity discharge collectors
• Continuous discharge collectors
• High efficiency cyclo nes
• Reverse-pulse filter/collector
Transferring of material in processing plants. Moisture removal during material transfer. Conveyor belt vacuum nozzle on return idler. Custom designed vacuum solutions to client needs.
Products:
• Belt v acuum nozzle
• Transfer system
• Road swe eping trucks
• Cust om solutions
“Valuable material is lost in processing. Let vacuumation recapture these losses and return them back into production.”
