Beneficiation a non-negotiable for Africa’s mining industry

Beneficiation of minerals is possibly the biggest priority of African countries at present. In South Africa, this has been made clear by Minister of Mineral Resources, Gwede Mantashe, who said beneficiation would remain on the mining agenda until the country was no longer shipping out bulk ore in vast quantities. “Value addition is important to us,” he said, indicating that the goal was to ultimately mine and process minerals locally. According to President Cyril Ramaphosa, companies should embrace beneficiation. “Not only does beneficiation encourage the expansion of our industrial capacity, create employment and enable the extraction of greater value from our mineral wealth, it also helps to create demand for these metals and locates markets
for these metals closer to the site of production.” He said already several companies had seen the logic of local beneficiation and were keen to work with government to develop downstream industries. Ghana’s President, Nana Akufo-Addo, said the extractive sector, particularly mining, could help to grow Africa’s manufacturing sector and be the champion of growth on the continent. “That will not happen if Africa remains the place to come and dig minerals that are exported in their raw condition to be processed outside,” he said. “We cannot and should not be merely exporters of raw materials to other countries. The value of mineral extraction has great potential for job creation and can form the basis for the transformation of economies around the
continent.” According to AkufoAddo, the continent’s reputation of political instability is outdated and improvements in the rule of law are being seen in many jurisdictions where policy and regulatory certainty are the order of the day. Akufo-Addo said in future mining deals had do be more beneficial for Africa as the time had come to make the continent prosperous again. “Africa loses more than $50 billion annually through illicit financial outflows,” he said. A report commissioned by the African Union Commission and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa revealed that illicit financial outflows in Africa amounted to $250 billion, 56% of which was from the extractive industry.