Cape Town – The Benchmarks Foundation has raised concerns that the proposed General Mining Laws Amendment Bill could punish low-level zama-zamas while failing to reach the powerful syndicates allegedly financing and benefiting from illegal mining operations.
The government is proposing sweeping changes to South Africa’s mining laws, including tougher penalties for illegal mining, with offenders potentially facing fines of up to R100 million and lengthy prison sentences.
“The guys who they want to arrest are not really the people that they should be looking for,” said Benchmarks Foundation lead researcher and activist David van Wyk.
Van Wyk said authorities needed to identify the people financing illegal mining syndicates and trace where illegally mined minerals were being taken and sold.
He argued that many of those working underground are vulnerable, low-level workers, while the individuals allegedly controlling and financing the operations remain largely untouched.
“We should be looking for the people, the big wigs, basically, so to speak, that are behind it,” Van Wyk said.
Van Wyk also questioned why illegal mining operations in remote areas had continued for months despite authorities being aware of them. He said simply arresting people at mining sites had not stopped the operations.
He further warned that illegal mining could become linked to political funding as South Africa approaches the local government elections, particularly in struggling mining communities where unemployment is high and abandoned mines have not been properly rehabilitated.
“In the mining areas, the people with the money, the kingpins, were never reported to be arrested,” he said.
Van Wyk said the proposed legislation could, however, create opportunities for artisanal miners to obtain permits and operate through regulated small-scale mining cooperatives.
He noted that the amendments had not yet completed the parliamentary process and that civil society organisations had been calling for changes to the country’s mining laws for years.
“Everything in South Africa takes too long. It takes a tragedy for things to get moving, it seems, every time,” Van Wyk said.
He said South Africa was undergoing a transition from large-scale industrial mining towards smaller-scale and more surface-based mining, making effective regulation increasingly important.
Van Wyk also raised concerns about the environmental impact of abandoned mining sites, saying large-scale mining companies had often failed to properly rehabilitate areas before small-scale miners moved in.
“Putting on small-scale miners onto these sites without proper environmental regulation is going to create even more problems,” he warned.
The Benchmarks Foundation says the government needs to ensure that tougher laws do not simply criminalise vulnerable workers but instead help authorities identify and prosecute the powerful networks allegedly financing and profiting from illegal mining.
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Compiled by Glaan Sibuyi
