Charting a way for South African mining to benefit communities

The document examines the failure of community trusts to deliver broad-based empowerment in South Africa's mining sector, highlighting how historical land tenure and the power of traditional chieftaincies often lead to rent-seeking and conflict. It specifically critiques Mining Charter III for mandating a new, ill-defined state agency to manage community shares without addressing the underlying governance failures seen in cases like the Bapo Ba Mogale and Bakwena Ba Mogopa.

• Mining Charter III mandates that 30% black ownership per mining right be achieved, with a specific requirement that a minimum of 8% of total issued shares be issued to mine communities via community trusts.
• The 2016 Mining Charter III introduces a new Mining Transformation and Development Agency to manage community trusts, but the document notes a lack of detail regarding its governance and structure, leading to concerns that it may serve as a vehicle for state rent collection.
• The use of traditional chieftaincies to manage community trusts is often problematic because the office is essentially undemocratic, which can lead to the diversion of funds and the suppression of rural resistance.
• Case studies of tribal trusts on the platinum belt illustrate extreme failures in governance; for example, in the Bapo Ba Mogale case, a trust account that received approximately ZAR 617 million over 20 years was depleted to R495,000 by 2014, with ZAR 115 million spent on a royal palace.
• The Royal Bafokeng Holdings (RBH) is cited as a relatively positive exception in community trust management, having transitioned from a royalty model to direct business investments and becoming a major corporate entity.
• Mining-dependent local municipalities in South Africa are predominantly located in poor, peripheral provinces, where insecure communal land tenure complicates the implementation of social and labour plans.

APA

Harvey, R. (2017). Charting a way for South African mining to benefit communities. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Policy-Insights-50.pdf

Chicago

Harvey, Ross. Charting a way for South African mining to benefit communities. South African Institute of International Affairs, 2017. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Policy-Insights-50.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Harvey |first1=Ross |title=Charting a way for South African mining to benefit communities |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=July 2017 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Policy-Insights-50.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{harvey2017charting, author = {Harvey, Ross}, title = {{Charting a way for South African mining to benefit communities}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2017}, month = jul, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Policy-Insights-50.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }