Gwede Mantashe Biography
Gwede Mantashe, born on 21st June 1955 in Cala, Eastern Cape in South Africa, is a South Africa politician who serves as the Secretary General of the African National Congress.
Gwede Mantashe Educational Qualifications
He studied at the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 1997 and completed his B.Comm Honours degree in 2002. In 2008 he acquired a Masters degree from the University of Witwatersrand (WITS).
Gwede Mantashe Career
He joined the migratory labour force in the mining industry. He became a Recreation Officer at Western Deep Levels mine, in 1975 . He later moved to Prieska Copper Mines where he was Welfare Officer until 1982.
In 1982 he co founded the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and became the Witbank branch chairperson a position he held until 1984.
In 1985 he was elected NUM Regional Secretary. He became the NUM’s National Organiser in 1988 a position he held until 1993. He later became the its Regional Coordinator between 1993 to 1994.
He served as the Assistant General Secretary of the NUM, from 1994 to 1998, whereupon he was elected as the first worker General Secretary at the union’s congress in 1998. He relinquished his position as the General Secretary of the NUM in May 2006 at the union’s 12th National Congress.
In 2007 he was elected Secretary-General of the African National Congress at the party’s 52nd national conference. In February 2010 Julius Malema called on Mantashe to resign after Malema was booed at the SA Communist Party’s special conference in Polokwane. The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) publicly backed Mantashe. “Mantashe is being singled out and targeted because he is a communist,” Numsa general-secretary Irvan Jim said.
Gwede Mantashe Membership
He served as the Secretary-General of the National Union of Mineworkers until their 12th National Conference held in May 2006. In 1995 he was appointed to the board of Directors of Samancor, a JSE Limited-listed company
He served for two years as Chairperson of the Technical Working Group of the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) . He was the chairperson of the South African Communist Party until July 2012. He is a member of the Politburo of the South African Communist Party.
Gwede Mantashe Age
He was born on 21st June 1955 in Cala, Eastern Cape in South Africa. He is 63 years old as of 2018.
Gwede Mantashe Family – Gwede Mantashe Wife
He is married to Nolwandle Mantashe. He has a son, Buyambo Mantashe and two daughters, Chuma Mantashe and Mbasa Mantashe.
Gwede Mantashe PhotoGwede Mantashe Salary – Gwede Mantashe Net Worth
This information will be updated soon.
Gwede Mantashe Contact Details
PHONE: 012 444 3999
FAX: 012 444 3145
Gwede Mantashe Twitter
Gwede Mantashe Press Conference
Gwede Mantashe News
No BEE targets for exploration, says Gwede Mantashe
Source: businesslive.co.za
Minerals Council SA chief Roger Baxter hails Mantashe’s reforms as a game-changer, but one executive says it’s a move from hell to purgatory, not heaven
Mineral resources minister Gwede Mantashe has moved to undo one of the most damaging elements in his predecessor’s version of the Mining Charter, releasing exploration companies from onerous black ownership conditions that the industry partially blames for a drop in activity to levels not seen in about five decades.
Mosebenzi Zwane, Mantashe’s predecessor who was closely linked to the Gupta family at the centre of state capture allegations, issued a third version of the charter in June 2017, obliging prospecting companies to have 51% black ownership, effectively bringing already volatile levels of exploration to the lowest level since at least the 1960s.
Reviving exploration is essential to develop new mines in SA, where the mining sector contributes about 8% to the economy and employs more than 460,000 people.
Mantashe gazetted a fresh version of the third charter on September 27. However, it still created uncertainty in the sector about what it meant for exploration companies.
Asked specifically about this at the Joburg Indaba mining conference on Wednesday, Mantashe said prospecting rights fell outside the obligations laid out in the charter for mining rights.
“Why should we put a target on prospecting because for prospecting you are just looking,” he said. “You haven’t started creating wealth … once you have discovered something, then the BEE requirement must kick in,” he said, referring to the requirement for 30% empowerment ownership and other obligations.
Roger Baxter, CEO of the Minerals Council SA, said the country was attracting just 1% of the $8.4bn spent on exploration globally, compared with 14% for the rest of Africa and a similar amount for Australia. “We should be at least 5%,” he said.
The steps Mantashe had taken to improve the environment and create “a much better enabling framework to get those venture capitalist companies back in SA, both domestic and foreign … is a game-changer”, Baxter said.
Regulations and policies needed to be embedded for up to 15 years to give industry certainty.
An analyst said that after a decade of hiatus in prospecting in SA, there was finally positive news for exploration.
But once a deposit was under development it was subject to the obligations of the charter and this would make it an expensive exercise for the company.
It would have to effectively fund 100% of the project, including the 30% for empowerment partners, making it unlikely there would be a flood of new mines in SA, with only the best deposits clearing investment hurdles.
Mantashe declined to be drawn on whether the charter would be changed again after five years, but he committed to no further changes over that period for the document, which was first implemented in 2004 and amended in 2010 before Zwane’s iteration in 2017.
However, one senior mining executive cautioned against excessive optimism over the new charter.
“We all think we’re in heaven, but we’re not. After being in hell for so long with Zwane, we’ve moved into purgatory and have made the mistake of thinking we’ve arrived.
“There’s still a very long way to go,” the executive said.
Baxter conceded there were areas of deep concern for the council’s members, including the need for mining rights under renewal to comply with the new charter instead of falling under the continuing consequences of meeting the ownership target of 26% of the first two charters.
The charter’s requirement that renewed mining rights meet the revised ownership obligations could fall foul of a declaratory court order that once the department was satisfied a company had met its empowerment obligations, it was not obliged to restore or top up those ownership levels.
The council would hold talks with Mantashe and his team on this and other points of concern in the charter, said Baxter, referring to the 60-day period since the gazetting of the charter to negotiate and draw up implementation guidelines for the document.
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