WELCOME TO MINING FOR CHANGE 2011

In less than 12 months, the ANC will host a policy conference at which the management of South Africa’s natural resources will come into sharp focus. Given this background, AngloGold Ashanti, in partnership with Motjoli Resources and the producers of the documentary film “Mining for change - A story of South African mining”, have organised a series of 6 seminars over 6 weeks to help build greater understanding between the different stakeholders within the mining industry.

Currently, the ANC Youth League, under the guidance of its president Julius Malema, is calling for the wholesale nationalisation of South African mines.

Business representatives have, after a period of near silence, begun responding to these calls. The government says its mineral resources policy has not changed. The Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu, has gone as far as to say that nationalisation will only happen over her “dead body”. None of this has quietened the calls for nationalisation.

In response, the ANC has appointed a research group to carry out a “State Intervention in Mineral Sector Project”, which is conducting its work both in SA and in several countries with strong mining sectors operating a variety of models of state intervention and regulation.

These seminars are designed to help build at least a greater degree of common ground between the different stakeholders within South Africa’s mineral resource industry, and contribute to the public discourse ahead of the ANC’s 2012 policy conference.