Premier Maureen Modiselle today told Mining Captains in the North West that the strategic chemistry between the private and public sectors is always governed by the What is in it for me mantra that is always misunderstood to mean one party should always take from the other.
Our country has since the inception of the current democratic constitution always been grappling with the question of how the private sector should collaborate with the public sector and particularly government, she said.
She further said that South Africa’s preoccupation with the notion of how far the state should be involved in the management of the economy may have made us to operate on the blind spot of what vibrant democracies have been doing all along.
The ownership structure of our means of production has created a situation where some amongst us are unable to be patriotic about aspects of productivity since they view these in the prism of what is in it for me and then the country, she added.
In our nomenclature as the ruling party we are focusing on the extent to which the state can be involved, we are not entertaining the either or option, Premier Modiselle told the mining captains. She said that this country’s history of socially based wealth accumulation and spending is very instructive to the manner in which we view our social contracts as we build governance alliances to fulfil our historical mandate of liberating society from poverty and general lack.
Because of this contestation for socio-political space with captains of industry we are sometimes seen as been too friendly to a worker based economic democracy when we are actually on a mission to create a sufficient pool of decent jobs in order to relieve ourselves of the often overstated focus on redistribution, she continued.
As a developmental state that has an open election mandate our new drive is to reconfigure the growth path of South Africa to be industrialisation based. We have developed this approach with a clear understanding that most industrialised democracies would not commit to our trajectory as it is potentially a threat to their Africa encroachment plans, she added.
Premier also said that this new economic drive is also informed by the knowledge that any established business person in South Africa is one way or the other experienced with the country’s statist political culture that spans 100 years. It is in this interventionist platform that we believe a productivity based economic growth path will be carved, she said.
She added that her provincial administration is in this context alive to the importance and impact of mining in the economy of the North West province. We are aware that Mining accounts for 31% of the Provinces Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and uses 24% of the labour pool which translates to over 64 000 jobs.
It is in the evolvement of a framework for socio-economic development initiatives between government and mining houses in the province that our miracle will be realised, she continued. As you are all aware that the government recognises the critical role of the mining sector in the
North West province and is committed to the principle of obtaining optimal benefits from the mineral resource base in the province, the government maintains that these benefits should not only accrue to the owners of these assets, she said. In my SOPA I told citizens of this province that we will be continuing with our efforts to compel mining houses to also account to the province how they are progressing in terms of the social and labour plans, broad based economic empowerment as well as enterprise development initiatives, Premier Modiselle also said.
As we trust that you are executing your license obligations in the environmental upkeep in the areas that you mine by not polluting the water and air resource belonging to the people of this province, we also trust that you are performing well in terms of the socio-economic obligations in your licenses, she added.
She also said that as a developmental state, South Africa has a responsibility to see that a proper assessment is made of all the socio-economic costs and benefits and that a fair process of distribution and allocation is implemented I came to this round table being expectant on your new commitments about rolling out your already made commitments.
My drive to have this aspect fore-grounded during my tenure is informed by the growing rapport between mines and government, Premier Modiselle said. She also acknowledged the generous contributions by different mining houses to social development project in communities that they operate and do business within.
However if you ask me, I would say to you that a mining house that will leave in its locality an export potential village manufacturing firm would have done better that the one that just keeps the community on the recipient side of economic existence, she said.
For more information, contact:
Kgotso Khumalo
Cell: 082 7288 400
Tel: 018 387 3456
E-mail: khumalok@nwpg.gov.za
Issued by: Office of the Premier, North West Provincial Government
27 May 2010
