The leadership of South Africa’s mining industry, including government, organised labour and organised business met on Friday, 22 January 2010 under the auspices of the Mining Industry Growth, Development and Employment Task Team (MIGDETT) leadership plenary.
MIGDETT was established in December 2008 to achieve two critical outcomes:
* To help the industry manage the negative effects of the global economic crisis and to save jobs
* To position the industry for growth and transformation in the medium- to long-term.
The meeting, convened by the Director-General of the Department of Mineral Resources, Advocate Sandile Nogxina, noted that MIGDETT had already registered significant achievements by containing the number of job losses in the mining industry during the global economic slump, from an initial estimate of 100 000 to approximately 50 000.
Against the backdrop of the green offshoots of an economic recovery, MIGDETT will now shift focus to position the mining industry for the inevitable upswing and ensure that the industry is positioned to achieve higher growth, the creation of decent jobs and transformation.
At today’s meeting, the leadership of the industry agreed that a prosperous, growing and transforming mining industry was crucial to the socio-economic health of South Africa. In order to realise this important objective, the leadership of the mining industry agreed to develop a strategy for the sustainable growth and meaningful transformation of South Africa’s mining sector. This strategy will be developed by the tripartite collective under the auspices of MIGDETT and will culminate in a Mining Summit during March 2010.
The meeting agreed that the MIGDETT process would examine all aspects, including the review of the Mining Charter, in preparation for the Mining Summit in March.
The leadership agreed that this is a critically important process and have committed, as is the industry’s custom, to engage constructively on ensuring that the key objectives of sustainable growth, creation of decent jobs and meaningful transformation are achieved.
Enquiries:
Jeremy Michaels
Cell: 082 772 1122
Tel: 012 679 9192
E-mail: jeremy.michaels@dme.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Mineral Resources
24 January 2010
