{"id":843807,"date":"2025-11-19T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=843807"},"modified":"2025-11-19T12:19:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T10:19:16","slug":"two-men-cost-south-africa-half-a-million-jobs-in-a-crucial-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/843807\/two-men-cost-south-africa-half-a-million-jobs-in-a-crucial-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Two men cost South Africa half a million jobs in a crucial industry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Modern Corporate Solutions mining analyst Peter Major stated that two men, Cyril Ramaphosa and Gwede Mantashe, have cost South Africa over half a million jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major is one of South Africa\u2019s most respected mining experts with over four decades of experience in the sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has won numerous awards for his work in the South African mining sector, including two Raging Bull Awards and two Top Fund Manager awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told Biznews that President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe have done tremendous harm to the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their biggest failing, Major said, is their inability to address the concerns raised by the local mining industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s mining industry has been plagued by policy uncertainty, threats of nationalisation, and deteriorating infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s mining output has remained flat for the past 20 years, as companies have been hesitant to invest in new projects or expand existing operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More worryingly, no new exploration for minerals has occurred in South Africa for the past two decades, resulting in an entire lost generation of mines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major told BizNews that the warning lights about stagnation in the sector have been flashing for years, with the reality finally beginning to hit home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said Mantashe had a fantastic opportunity to ignite the South African mining industry with his closing address at the Joburg Mining Indaba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he failed. Mantashe did not deliver any fresh ideas to revive the once-powerful industry in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe just ignored the entire panel before him, which outlined all of the challenges the mining industry is facing in South Africa,\u201d Major said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that Mantashe and Ramaphosa\u2019s actions, or lack thereof when needed, cost 450,000 gold miners and 100,000 miners in other sectors their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would have been so easy to rise to the occasion and show some concern for these miners. However, he does not seem to care about those people,\u201d Major said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s mining sector is struggling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Modern Corporate Solutions mining analyst Peter Major<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For many decades, South Africa\u2019s mining sector was the backbone of the local economy, employing a significant proportion of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, over the last two decades, it has experienced a profound structural decline, moving from a global powerhouse to a troubled industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The industry has experienced declining output, reduced investment, and substantial job losses at many of the mines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A combination of operational, infrastructural, and regulatory challenges has made mining in South Africa much less attractive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1980, the mining industry contributed 21% towards South Africa\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By 2024, it only contributed approximately 6.1% to GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although there are factors which the government cannot control, like declining gold ore grades, most of this decline could be avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Load-shedding, Transnet\u2019s collapse, which caused difficulties getting products to ports, higher costs, and policy uncertainty, have damaged the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were a leviathan in 1980. Nobody could beat us. Anglo American was the largest investor in the United States. The Americans were terrified of us,\u201d Major said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when the new government took power in 1994, it decided to try to totally revamp the mining law in South Africa and copy what other African nations did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt said, \u2018We will nationalise these mines and take them back. They are no longer private property but are the state\u2019s property,\u201d Major said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said companies which invested billions into mining projects were suddenly threatened with state ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs if nationalising property was not enough, they put on all these horrendous conditions that drove capital away,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNew investments stopped. Exploration and expansion stopped. It made no sense to invest in a project which the state can take.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are seeing what happened in Zambia and in Zimbabwe now happening in South Africa. It has not turned around. It is still going down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Modern Corporate Solutions mining analyst Peter Major stated that two men, Cyril Ramaphosa and Gwede Mantashe, have cost South Africa over half a million jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":843814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[1293,2261,2319,22460],"class_list":["post-843807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-gwede-mantashe","tag-mining","tag-peter-major"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843809,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843807\/revisions\/843809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}