"South Africa needs to move with greater purpose and urgency to remove the various impediments to the growth and development of the [mining] industry," he told attendees at Mining Indaba earlier this month.
He cited permitting and a lack of exploration support, alongside dilapidated national infrastructure as some of the more lamentable country risks.
Mining Journal's Investment Risk Index (IRI), which assesses the mining risk landscape globally, ranked South Africa 79 out of 106 jurisdictions.
The Sub-Saharan jurisdiction registerd an overall score of 50 for a CCC rating (moderate-to-high risk). This marks a three-point or 6% decline since the index was developed in 2017.
Heat map showing South Africa's risk rating relative to African peers
The IRI is part of the Mining Journal Intelligence World Risk Report (feat.MineHutte ratings) (WRR) and measures jurisdictions' investment risk across five areas - legal, governance, social, fiscal and infrastructure.
In terms of category ratings, South Africa languished most on the ‘Legal' front, which measures the national mining code. With a score of 35, South Africa came second bottom to Namibia (34) out of 30 Africa jurisdictions covered, and was beaten by the DRC (36).
‘Fiscal' earned the country its top category rating with score of 58. However, this was still down from 76 in 2019 and compares poorly to other mining strongholds - Australia (70), Canada (78) the US (81).
South Africa's continued decline in overall score also pushed it into the bottom half of jurisdictions relative to its African peers.
Looking at the Permitting and Opportunity indices within the WRR, South Africa sat in 80th position with a score of 48, and 33rd position with a score of 41, respectively.
