THE South African government blamed the backlog in mining licence applications in its current financial year ended March on the applicants.
Responding to an article this week in the Daily Maverick, the department of mineral resources and energy’s (DMRE’s) Tseliso Maqubela said mining firms often failed to complete their environmental consultations in time.
Speaking to Talk Radio 702 about the article, Deputy Director-General Maqubela also said his department processed about 2,000 applications from the previous financial year.
In other words, when mines and energy minister Gwede Manashe confirmed in Parliament that none of the 2,525 new applications had been approved, he omits to mention there had been at least some approvals in the DMRE’s application pipeline; it’s just that it takes more than a year to do.
“When you apply for a mining licence, if we accept you, we then ask you that within 60 days of that acceptance, you must apply for an environmental authorisation,” Daily Maverick quoted Maqubela in his interview with 702.
“So, if someone applies for an environmental authorisation on day 59, then we have to accept that authorisation, and we then give the person a number of days in which they then have to submit to us a basic assessment report or an environmental management programme,” he said.
“And in that process, the applicant has to consult interested and affected parties. And the delay is effectively on that consultation.”
The Daily Maverick also highlighted comments Maqubela made about applications for coal mining permits in Mpumalanga province. Maqubela’s claim is that as “everyone is applying for permits for coal” the mining licence application process was being further choked.
A mining permit, which only covers up to five hectares, is far less onerous to obtain than a full-scale commercial mining right, said the Daily Maverick.
But a permit doesn’t require a social and labour plan or an extensive environmental impact assessment — which undermines the explanation that environmental impact assessments are causing the delays, the publication said.
