Latest news with #NokukhanyaMntambo
Eyewitness News
21-05-2025
- Business
- Eyewitness News
Mantashe says deal on SA minerals unlikely to be on the table as Ramaphosa meets Trump
Nokukhanya Mntambo 21 May 2025 | 6:45 Gwede Mantashe Cyril Ramaphosa Donald Trump Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe. Picture: @GovernmentZA/X JOHANNESBURG - Minerals and Petroleum Resources Minister, Gwede Mantashe, said a deal on the country's critical minerals is unlikely to be on the table at the Oval Office when President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with his United States (US) counterpart, Donald Trump. Mantashe, who is also the acting president in Ramaphosa's absence, briefed the media on the Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy in Cape Town on Tuesday. This is part of what the government says is a broader tactic to tighten the policy framework for the critical minerals sector and streamline regulations. Africa is said to hold 30% of the world's critical mineral reserves, such as manganese, graphite, nickel, lithium and copper. The US relies on South African metals and minerals that are essential for its economy and national security, making metals and minerals the biggest South African exports to the US. According to the Institute for Global Dialogue, in 2021, platinum group metals were almost half of South Africa's exports to the US, and nearly 100% of the US's global chromium supply. When Trump slapped the world with higher import tariffs, he put gold, platinum group metals, copper, and zinc on a list of exemptions. Some economists said SA's minerals could be the Trump card the country needs at the negotiating table when diplomats talk trade and race policies in Washington. But Mantashe said otherwise. 'I would imagine that the US would try to put the issue of minerals on the table, but I doubt if the South African delegation will commit South Africa on its minerals. They may have issues, but that will have to come back for a discussion in the country. 'Any decision on that front will have to involve us, it will have to involve the Mineral Council, labour, and then we can make proposals. But our emphasis remains, our critical minerals must be enriched close to the place of production and that delegation in the US understands that fully,' added Mantashe. That aside, there are also semantics involved with calls for a new definition on critical minerals - one that differentiates between what is genuinely vital to a country, and what is just something of importance. ALSO READ:
Eyewitness News
22-04-2025
- Business
- Eyewitness News
ActionSA says DA was complicit in decision to increase VAT
Nokukhanya Mntambo 22 April 2025 | 5:46 ActionSA Democratic Alliance (DA) Value-added tax Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana tabled the 2025 budget in the National Assembly in Cape Town on 12 March 2025. Picture: GCIS JOHANNESBURG - As the Democratic Alliance (DA) hauls the National Treasury to court over the expected VAT hike, ActionSA said that the second-biggest party in the Government of National Unity (GNU) was also complicit in the raising of the standard rate. The aborted budget in February included a controversial decision to increase VAT by two percentage points. That was later revised down to one percentage point over two years. But the proposal caused a political pushback led by the DA which has now approached the court to have the decision by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana set aside. With some conditions, ActionSA is among smaller parties that helped get the fiscal framework of the budget over the line in the National Assembly earlier in Alan Beesley said that the DA must have known about the increase ahead of time. "ActionSA can today reveal, through a damning parliamentary reply, that the DA's deputy minister of finance, Ashor Sarupen, was intimately involved in the budget process, particularly in drafting the original 19 February Budget Speech, which included the deeply unpopular two percentage point VAT increase, as well as the subsequent revision to the split one percentage point increase, despite their denials."
