Macua demands urgent withdrawal of the Mineral Resources Development Bill

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a day ago

Members of the Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) gathered outside the offices of the Mineral and Resources, in Pretoria, to make submission against the proposed Mineral Resources Development Bill.
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The Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) has called for the withdrawal of the current proposed Mineral Resources Development Bill, saying it should be restructured and rebuilt with the people at the centre.
The organisation held a protest in five provincial offices of the Mineral and Resources across the country on Wednesday, to make submissions opposing the draft bill. The provinces include Pretoria (Gauteng), Klerksdorp (North West), Emalahleni (Mpumalanga), Polokwane (Limpopo), and Welkom in the Free State.
The Bill was published for public comment on May 20, 2025, with a submission deadline of August 13, 2025. It aims to ensure policy and regulatory certainty, enhance investor confidence, reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies, and improve turnaround times for mining rights, permits, and regulatory approvals, as well as formally recognise artisanal mining and advance transformation in the mining sector.
However, in its submission, Macua said this is no milestone for those who bear the brunt of mining's footprint, those who live with the dust, displacement, environmental degradation, and broken promises.
The organisation said the Bill fails to deliver justice, equity, or transformation.
The submission document stated that despite extensive, legally grounded submissions from Macua, the MPRDA Coalition, Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), and other civil society partners, including constitutional benchmarks, legislative proposals, and community-authored clauses, core inputs have been ignored, and the result is a Bill that not only omits the tenets of post-apartheid justice but also reconfigures the regulatory architecture to entrench exclusion under the guise of reform.
'Nowhere is this betrayal more evident than in the Bill's refusal to enshrine Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for communities residing on communal and customary land. The Constitution, IPILRA (Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act), and landmark rulings such as Maledu and Baleni affirm that land rights holders must provide informed consent, not merely be 'consulted', before mining can proceed,' said Macua, adding that the Bill entrenches a weak and discretionary consultation model that lacks enforceability.
'Worse, it omits any recognition of customary governance systems or collective land rights, ignoring the lived realities of rural, informal, and traditional communities,' the organisation said.
Independent Media tried to get a comment from the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, but spokesperson Johannes Mokobane said he was in the meeting and will revert.
The submission also stated that this is not a legislative oversight, but a deliberate political choice and one that aligns with the interests of extractive capital rather than those of historically dispossessed communities.
Macua said this paves the way for forced removals, land dispossession, and State-sanctioned displacement without community control.
Macua added that the Bill was not based on meaningful public consultation and it has ignored the differential impact of mining on women and landless people, adding that it offers no impact analysis of removing community protections.
'Using such a shallow and exclusionary process as the evidentiary foundation of the law is indefensible.'
The submission document stated that the Bill provides no framework for displacement, resettlement or restitution.
Despite years of documented abuses, including relocations without compensation, dispossession of burial sites, and community fragmentation, the Bill sidesteps the issue entirely.
'This silence perpetuates spatial injustice, especially in the context of the government's Critical Minerals Strategy, which targets new zones for extraction in areas like the Waterberg, Sekhukhune, and Pondoland without safeguards,' said Macua.
The organisation said it proposed statutory protections against forced removal, minimum compensation standards, as well as environmental and social planning obligations tied to land tenure, but all were ignored.
Macua said the Bill introduces a new artisanal mining permit under Section 27A, but it is a deeply flawed and exclusionary instrument that fails to reflect the realities of informal mining communities or support meaningful transformation.
According to Macua, while the Bill appears to empower the minister to identify areas for artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), this authority is purely discretionary and is not accompanied by any procedural requirements, designation criteria, or support structures.
The organisation said there is no legal obligation to map, consult, or designate zones where ASM can operate lawfully and sustainably.