- South Africa’s State Information Technology Agency has issued a tender for the Design, Implementation, Maintenance and Support of The Mining Licensing System for a period of one (1)-year with an additional two (2)-years post implementation support services for the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.
Compulsory Briefing Session will be held as follows:
- Date: 31 March 2023
- Time: 10:00 am
- Venue: Microsoft Teams (Click here to join the meeting)
Link to the bid document HERE
Link to the rest of the tender documents HERE
South Africa’s current mining cadastre is dysfunctional and out of date causing extended delays in mining license applications. The industry as whole has suffered terribly from the administrational incompetence of government in this regard. When taking office over three years ago, the country’s Minerals and Energy Minister, Gwede Mantashe, set a target to attract at least 5% of the mining sector’s global exploration budget in a three to five year period. It has not happened. South Africa is still below 1%. Read more
The problem extends to power generation projects development in all technologies. In terms of Section 53 of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, any developer of a power generation project needs to first apply for permission from the mining rights holder and then apply from the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy for permission to go ahead with the development. Without a functional mining cadastre indentifying the mining rights holder, developers are unable to move forward with their development works.
The extended delays have resulted in private service providers like AmaranthCX developing an interactive map of the coal mines and projects of South Africa’s Mpumalanga Highveld arranged by coal fields and overlaying the known coal bearing geology.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
