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The Democratic Alliance (DA) will submit a written question to Minister Gwede Mantashe and his Department asking for a detailed plan to halt the jobs bloodbath currently happening in the sector, which lost almost seven thousand jobs in the second quarter.

The DA will also be asking that the Minister give a detailed account of where the Department is with the implementation of the new online mining cadastral system, which will reduce procedural inefficiencies and lead to more investment in the mining sector. This in turn will lead to more jobs and a growing mining industry.

Thousands of coal miners are marching in Mpumalanga to protest retrenchment. They are employed by Seriti Resources where more than eleven hundred workers are facing retrenchment.

The sector decline in the second quarter showed an opposite trend to the rest of the economy which saw almost fifty thousand jobs added in the quarter.

The mining industry is a key sector of the South African economy and is one of the largest employers in the country. It is of paramount importance that this trend of decline is arrested.

Attracting investment needs a stable regulatory environment and the current legal framework in the form of the Mining and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2000 (MPRDA) is insufficient in building such an environment.

Issued by Sphesihle Zondi MP - DA Deputy Spokesperson on Mineral and Petroleum Resources