No harm in nationalisation debate: minister
2010-02-02 12:00
There was no harm in letting Julius Malema flex his intellectual
muscles by talking about nationalisation, Mineral Resources Minister Susan
Shabangu said today.
However she insisted his pronouncements did not shape government
policy.
“In my lifetime there’ll be no nationalisation,” she told a media
conference at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town.
“Maybe when I’m dead, and rest assured I’m not dying next
week.”
Though nationalisation was not government policy, South Africa was
a democratic country, and young people who wanted to “flex their muscles
intellectually” should not be suppressed.
“Why should we stop young people when they want to engage in an
intellectual debate?
“If Malema flexes his muscle as a young person, and engages in
intellectual and academic exercise, why must we stop him?“
Malema, who is the leader of the African National Congress Youth
League, has repeatedly called for nationalisation of the country’s mines,
starting with its gold and platinum mines.
In October last year he gave ANC leaders an ultimatum to either
support nationalisation or forget about leading the ANC in 2012.
Shabangu told the media conference that the notion of state
participation in the mining sector was nothing new.
It already owned diamond mining concern Alexkor, and had a stake in
Anglo American.
“So we are already there. We exist, we compete, we are part of the
markets,” she said.
However such involvement had to be strategic and in the national
interest.
“If the state must be involved it will have to compete, it will
have to make sure it becomes efficient, it has to compete like any other
business,” she said.
“You can’t say nationalisation is strategic, because
nationalisation is about everything, and that’s not the route we’re
taking.”
Earlier, in a speech to delegates at the Indaba, Shabangu said her
department was working to reduce the turnaround time for mining rights
applications from the current year to six months.
Prospecting rights applications would be reduced from six to three
months.
- SAPA