Illegal mining a threat to SA's competitiveness

Tilfontein is proving to be an inflection point for South Africa's approach to illegal mining.

- NQOBILE XABA

It is also helping to focus attention on issues relating to critical minerals, which South Africa is endowed with.

Critical minerals or critical energy transition minerals include a wide swathe of elements, which are important for various clean energy technologies.

The growing demand for these critical energy transition minerals makes the value chains associated with the minerals susceptible to illegal activities.

Illegal mining in South Africa has been mainly confined to the gold mining sector.

However, illegal mining incidents, such as the events unfolding in Stilfontein, threaten South Africa's competitiveness in the critical minerals sector.

South Africa is a global producer of critical minerals, placing a responsibility on us to ensure supply to our trading partners as well as our domestic market for economic growth.

Illegal mining activities in the gold value chain have demonstrated the vulnerability of South Africa's mineral value chains.

This vulnerability increases with the risk that illegal activities spread to the emerging critical minerals sector.