Mineral resources can push SADC’s industrialisation drive

Lazarus Sauti

Professor Francis Gudyanga, Permanent Secretary in Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Mines and Mining Development says mineral resources in Southern Africa have the potential to push the region’s industrialisation drive.

“Mining is strategic towards accelerated economic growth and wealth creation. It is of importance in Southern Africa as most countries are endowed with mineral resources such as vanadium, oil, platinum, diamonds, cobalt, copper, gold, gas as well as reserves encompassing different types of minerals.

“If these resources are judiciously exploited, they can push the region’s industrialisation drive over and above improving the lives of citizens,” he said.

South African President, Jacob Zuma, also believes the region is resource rich, hence the need to safeguard them.

Zuma added that to excavate natural resources and pop up economies, countries in the regional grouping must not be considered as price takers, but rather price makers of all materials.

“Countries in the region are blessed with different mineral resources, and as leaders, we agreed that all minerals resources must be processed in the region to fully benefit our people. For this to happen, we must be considered as price makers not simply price takers of our minerals,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s leader and SADC chairman, President Robert Mugabe, always says the region should realise that it is endowed with mineral resources which can finance its operations if utilised carefully and magnificently.

What pains President Mugabe most is the fact that with its abundant resources, the regional bloc still struggles with limited economic transformation, low or no resource rents and scarce employment.

“The SADC region should realise that it is endowed with mineral resources. These reserves must be exploited, and the financial resources arising from them must be used to create industries as well as to underpin broad-based sustainable growth and socio-economic development,” President Mugabe said.

Carlos Lopes, the Executive Secretary of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, concurs:

“Africa is commodity rich – member-states are blessed with natural resources such as platinum, diamonds, copper and chromium. These resources should be exploited wisely to address the continent’s social and economic needs, improve environmental and social sustainability, foster regional and international integration in addition to driving the industrialisation revolution.”

Further, the world’s appetite for Africa’s resources should provide the region with the opportunity as well as the solution to industrialise and transform socio-economically, says Tony O. Elumelu, entrepreneur, philanthropist and the chairman of Heirs Holdings Limited – a Pan-African Investment Company committed to driving economic prosperity and social wealth in Africa.

“The world craves for Africa’s mineral resources; as such, SADC needs not to enter into meaningless agreement, but rectify problems that plague the management of its natural resources,” noted Elumelu.

At the fore of this endeavor, according to Lopes, should be the capacity of governments to get the best pacts for their countries during contract negotiations.

“To have a win-win situation, SADC simply needs to embed long term development objectives firmly into the processes for extracting natural resources,” said Lopes.

Dexter Nduna, Member of Parliament for Chegutu West, Zimbabwe, believes with its abundant resources, SADC seriously needs up-to-date geographical information so as to determine the quality of its mineral resources.

“The information concerning the nation’s mineral wealth that can be obtained by exploration will simultaneously attract foreign investment, increase the country’s net worth as well as strengthen the value of mines, setting the necessary preconditions for locally driven growth in the mining industry,” he said.   

Further, for mining to benefit every citizen, strong backward and forward linkages in the local economy should allow local entrepreneurs and industrialists to take advantage of service provision as well as technology transfer opportunities as a result of proximity to the mining industry, says Lopes.

“This means investment in infrastructure, research and human capital development, through conditionality for local content. This is what other regions have done; this is what Africa needs to do,” he said

Lopes also said the potential of small-scale mining should be harnessed and improved to improve rural livelihoods and integration into rural and national development.

Professor Gudyanga thinks the region’s chance of utilising its mineral resources to push the industrialisation agenda rests on how plans, strategies and policies that promote commodity-based industrialisation are designed and implemented.

This, he adds, is because exploiting natural resources for socio-economic transformation requires courage, vision and a new mindset from the SADC’s business as well as strong policies from political and business leaders.

 Professor Gudyanga also asserts that since there is no one-size-fits-all panacea to speed up resource-based industrialisation, SADC member-states must learn important lesson from other successful states in bringing the mining sector into service of promoting a life in abundance for all.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution to accelerating resource-based industrialisation, but important lessons can be learnt from countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Venezuela in propagating value addition as well as technological capabilities,” he said.

Sharing similar sentiments, Elumelu points out that policy decision makers need to change their thinking and understand that short-term revenue gains – as opposed to long term value addition – offer little or no contribution to sustainable socio-economic development.

“To shape its economic future and spread socio-economic prosperity through industrialisation, political and business leaders in SADC urgently need to fundamentally re-think the role of the mining sector for the national and regional economies and for life as such,” he said.

Frankly, SADC’s natural resource is a blessing. Therefore, this blessing should be used as a precursor for the region’s industrialisation resurgence.