BOOMING INDUSTRIES BY KOKETSO MAMABOLO
BOOMING SECTORS:
Good news for Mining & Broadcasting W
hile the majority of sectors have been struggling to recover from setbacks caused by necessary responses to the pandemic, the mining and broadcasting sectors are two that have managed to do well. The mining sector saw stunning leaps and lockdowns contributed to more people watching television and streaming content. MINING SECTOR The mining sector contributed 85% of the R120-million better-than-expected revenue in the first half of the 2021/2022 fiscal year. In October, production increased 2.1 % year-on-year. The biggest positive contributors to production were iron ore, platinum-group metals (PGM) and chromium ore. Coal was the biggest negative contributor to production. Overall mineral sales increased 4.8% yearon-year with the largest positive contributors being coal and iron ore at 58.5% and 28.4%, respectively.
18 | Public Sector Leaders | December • January 2022
“The leadership cooperation between the Minerals Council, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and organised labour helped the mining sector get back to work after the national lockdown at the beginning of 2020, with all the right preventative and mitigating controls in place thus saving lives and livelihoods in one of the most important economic sectors in the country,” said Roger Baxter, Minerals Council CEO. The Minerals Council’s Chief Economist, Henk Langehoven echoed these sentiments, speaking to Mining Weekly, when reflecting on how the mining sector was impacted by COVID-19: “Mining is doing well at the moment. There’s a very good feeling that’s developed between the companies and their employees, because of how the companies kept paying salaries and tried to keep miners safe during the height of the pandemic.”
