Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat) this week urged the government to impose stricter air pollution control.

Creamer: RBPlat is not just an ordinary empowered company, it is a black-owned company in the broadest base sense, because you are talking about 350 000 community people owning that company. It recorded a loss in the last six months and we know that platinum is under strain. It was important for their CEO Steve Phiri to make some strident announcements.

One of them was that South Africa is doing nothing to promote the demand for platinum. He is saying that the government is environmentally insensitive, they are not even coming in to line with the lowest of the low in the world. They have still got Euro 2 level air pollution controls and vehicle emission controls. He is pleading with them to lift their game and come up. Some of the developing countries are already at Euro 6 and we are still at Euro 2.

If they had to come in with these more stringent pollution and emission control levels, it would help platinum, which is our endowment. We supply the world bulk platinum. It is cleaning the air of the world around us, the big cities, but it is not cleaning ours. He is saying come to the party government. RBPlat wants to keep employing people, but the government must also do its bit with emission-control legislation. The RBPlat CEO asked the question and it is an analogy.

He asks how can you sell washing soap when you yourself chose to remain dirty? It is an hypocrisy. He was very complimentary about the statements from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the African National Congress in saying that business is a partner. It must not been seen as an adversary, we have got to work together here. We listen everyday about more jobs being decimated in the mining industry.

We hear in the gold sector now wiping out jobs. In platinum there has been many jobs wiped out. Over the last five years 80 000 jobs. NUM has said that this has got to stop. If we want to stop jobloss, we must also take some of our own steps and one of them is just coming up to world anti-pollution levels. We see the C40, ninety cities around the world 650-million people, a quarter of the global economy say we have got to clean our cities. It is not only an environmental and climate change imperative, it is also a health imperative.

These tiny particles from the emission from the cars get into people’s lungs and bloodstream, pass the brain barrier and get into the brain. They are saying people who live near big urban highways now are more inclined to get dementia and other illnesses such as cancer. The world is looking at it intensely and saying we have got to clean up our act not only because of the climate change but also for health reasons.

Yet, South Africa, which is the biggest supplier of this platinum, just sits back and does nothing. Also on the coin front, Steve Phiri, the Royal Bafokeng CEO – a former public prosecutor, he doesn’t mince his words – he is saying why throw all the red tape at us when we have had such success in a gold coin with the 50-year old Kruger coin. The biggest success in coinage in the history of the world. Now, we have got that to follow, but yet they are throwing red tape at us when we are trying to mint a Mandela coin, a platinum coin, which we believe has tremendous marketable value around the world and they are not coming along.

So, all the time, platinum which is really struggling at the moment, I know the price is up at $951, but that is still nothing to write home about. You can see a company that really is conscientious like RBPlat losing money in the 6 months, R39-million lost. It has had to mine certain areas and not mine areas in order to get more revenue. It has had to speak to all its employees and some of them it’s had to let go. It is not an easy thing.

Even during this time, they have made sure that they have got a loan from the Public Investment Corporation to ensure that houses are still built. They believe in nice housing, people live there and go home, it is a win-win situation, they get more productivity. I think the government must play its part and open its ears and listen to business and let’s have this partnership going for the benefit of South Africa’s economy.

Kamwendo: The names of all IDC clients, including politically exposed people, are now being made public.

Creamer: I think we have got to take our hats off to Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel. He has said from now on go to our website and you will see the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has officially started to publish, on its website, the identities of all its clients, including those officially identified on the site as politically exposed people (PEPs).

The IDC is State-owned and I think its governance has to be impeccable and this move in the interest of transparency is excellent, because banks normally are shy to do this. They normally plead with their clients, can we do it, even when they want to promote something, and the clients say they don't want to do it. Now the IDC is saying, we know that it is not easy but clients we are going to do it, if you get money from us, we are a public institution involved in development finance and your name is going to go up.

If you are politically exposed, you will go under the politically exposed section. They also said if you are a non-executive director of this company don’t ask for a loan you are not going to get one. That is reminding us that only last month the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) promised to give journalists the names of the more the 40 people who got non repayable grants by the end of July.

July has come and gone and they haven’t. The journalists have gone and asked them and they say it will come later. That does not reflect to the credit of the DTI Minister Rob Davies and I think he should correct it fast.

Kamwendo: Botswana is taking steps to build its own Sasol.

Creamer:  Yes, it is interesting that people have looked at Sasol and seen that you can get your own fuel. We have got coal in the ground in Botswana why can’t we do the same thing. So, bids closed this week for people to come in and to propose to have a coal-to-liquids plant in this Southern Africa country under the State-owned oil company Botswana Oil.  

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.