Department of Mineral Resources
Amendments to the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) of 2002 will be submitted to Parliament “as soon as possible”.
Minister Susan Shabangu announced this in a media statement issued on 17 August, when she undertook to take the proposed amendments to cabinet “before the end of this year”.
Sections of the act requiring amendment have been identified by a joint stakeholder task team established during a tripartite process that also arrived at a declaration of intent for the industry. The minister and industry leaders signed this declaration on 30 June 2010.
In her media statement, the minister referred to four areas of the act for which amendments will be proposed.
These are: the order of processing applications as outlined in chapter four of the act; grey areas in regulating different and associated minerals on the same land; the transferability of rights as outlined in section 11 of the act; and the unintended consequence of fragmenting converted old-order rights.
The minister conceded that some provisions of the act are “open to more than one interpretation”. She also acknowledged that the act contains a number of ambiguities.
“Due to the fact that the MPRDA is a relatively new piece of legislation, there is a lack of well-developed jurisprudence which would ordinarily assist with interpretation of the law. In the absence of such precedents, officials apply the letter of the law as opposed, for example, to interpreting the spirit or intentions of the law,” she stated.
“Lack of transparency in and access to our licensing data is causing unnecessary suspicion of our systems,” minister Shabangu continued. “We have administrative capacity problems, and there are increasing perceptions of corruption and/or incompetence.”
According to her media statement, the minister has instructed the department of mineral resources to implement a plan of action that includes developing an integrated license processing tracking system. This will be accessible to the public “within six months”. It will form part of a new administrative regime supported by a “quality management IT system”.
From 1 September 2010, in the interests of transparency, information on the status of exploration and mining licences will be accessible on the department's website. All stakeholders, including members of the public, will have access to the department’s new electronic administrative system.
Also with effect from 1 September 2010, the department will impose a six-month moratorium on receiving prospecting applications. The minister said that this period will “allow for a comprehensive audit of ... licences granted since the promulgation of the MPRDA”. It will also provide the department with an opportunity to “clean up” its database, so that “uncorrupted data” can be incorporated into the new integrated electronic application administrative system.
It is anticipated that the moratorium will be published soon in the Government Gazette.
According to the minister, all other existing licensing activities will continue as normal.
Minister Shabangu also stated that, “with immediate effect, prospecting rights will no longer be issued at regional office level and will instead be issued from … head office”.
In order to address “a number of administrative inefficiencies and fault lines, including capacity problems”, chief directors will be deployed to regional offices from 1 September 2010. The upgrading of the department’s regional offices will continue and is scheduled to be complete within the next six months.
“All cases of double granting of licences will be resolved within the next three months,” the minister continued. She undertook to deal “speedily and effectively” with all allegations of corruption and abuse of office.
Sabinet Cape Town Office
Post new comment