The new Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) is showing a strong tendency to resist companies that apply to shut mines or put mine shafts on care and maintenance.

Two mining companies that experienced this closure resistance last week were De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM) and Impala Platinum.

When DBCM reported that its board of directors had taken a decision to close its Voorspoed diamond mine, in the Free State, by year-end, the DMR called for a stay while it brought in some potential buyers for the mine.

When Impala Platinum announced board support for a major restructure of the Impala Rustenburg mine, the DMR put out a media release in which Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe called the company all sorts of names.

In the case of Voorspoed, DBCM went ahead with its closure plans while agreeing to the DMR having the month of August to come up with a suitable bidder.

In the case of Impala Platinum, the DMR wants Implats to apply Section 52 of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) ahead of Section 189 of the Labour Relations Act.

Section 52 of the MPRDA provides latitude for the company to sell the five shafts earmarked for closure, or to come up with other commercial solutions that keep jobs intact, including outsourcing mining to a mining contractor while retaining the mining licence.

DBCM has been trying to sell Voorspoed since November. The company received a king-size response to its invitations for expressions of interest from no fewer than 42 respondents.

However, four months into the bidding process, the opencast Voorspoed mine experienced a sidewall collapse and the only way to fix it was to curtail mine life.

The four bidders the company ended up with did not meet the technical, financial, regulatory and social criteria and the DBCM board told employees that the mine would close at the end of this year.

It appears, however, that there are entities that are requesting the DMR to point them in the direction of potential investments in mining and DBCM has given the department until August 31 to come up with a suitable bid.

But the 650 jobs involved at Voorspoed are nothing like the 40 000 jobs at Impala Rustenburg, and when Implats put forward its plan to retrench 13 000 over two years, the Minister blew a fuse.

Mantashe condemned the planned 13 000 job cuts as being “a clear example of a company that is careless” and denounced Implats’ “reckless actions” as adding “injury to insult”.

Last year, Implats cut 2 200 jobs without a single forced retrenchment, which the company is hoping to repeat under Section 189 when it cuts 1 500 jobs this year.

Job loss avoidance measures are the order of the day with mining companies, which include transferring teams to growth shafts and reskilling employees to fill vacancies.

Nobody is deliberately setting out to retrench but instead dealing with cash-burn that can also not be allowed to go on indefinitely.

Innovation is needed and it is sure to crop up because goodwill abounds.