Confidence that a competitive new Mining Charter will replace the unworkable Mining Charter III is still present in some of the highest echelons of the corporate mining world, despite new Minerals Minister Gwede Mantashe saying that not all of the charter’s generally errant and unworkable third iteration will be scrapped.

At top corporate level, African Rainbow Minerals executive chairperson Patrice Motsepe expressed absolute confidence that charter issues would be nullified and that the new charter would ensure that South Africa was returned to being a competitive mining investment destination. Motsepe also expressed the firm conviction that there would be widespread consensus across racial lines on the manner in which the crucial issue of land expropriation is tackled.

We hope he is right.

In the meantime, Mantashe last week surprised on the downside when he told journalists at his first media conference that Mining Charter III would be the basis of the negotiation of a new charter with industry, despite hope from key players that he would start discussions using the more acceptable Mining Charter II as a baseline.

The third iteration of the charter was a document that would not work in any mining jurisdiction anywhere in the world and had no aired support outside of the then Ministry which drew it up.

Former Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane even had to leave through the backdoor of a community meeting in Mpumalanga, where he had gone in an attempt to show how well supported his document was among communities.

Yet Mantashe’s public statements are that he does not want to bin it in its entirety, but he fails to detail what he would like to retain.

One wonders about the extent to which the new Minister is playing politics with this approach and the extent to which he has his eye on next year’s general election.

Meanwhile, good news from Mantashe is that the Mining Industry Growth, Development and Employment Task Team (Migdett) will be revived.

Migdett was established in 2008 to help the industry counteract the effects of the financial crisis on the mining industry.

Mantashe sees the revival of Migdett as translating into certainty that stakeholders will meet regularly so that they will be in a position to proactively deal with issues confronting the sector, which is always far better than having to deal with crises.

It is also good news that two task teams have been set up – one to focus on transformation in the sector, and the other to engage on issues of growth and competitiveness.

One has to credit the new Minister with guaranteeing that these task teams will report back in three weeks and reiterating that the charter itself will be finalised in three months.

Despite concerns that too much store is being set by the totally misplaced Mining Charter III, mining industry strength, as Motsepe predicts, could still emerge from all this.