In the last few months, the phenomenon of illegal mining has come to the fore, primarily through the lens of the criminal activity that has become associated with the Zama Zama. One gruesome example is the incident in July 2022, where eight women were raped by illegal miners in Krugersdorp while filming a music video close to a mine dump. In another example, during a recent raid in Stilfontein in the North West Province, police found at least 15 AK-47, some hunting rifles, some shotguns, an R5 and some explosives. It appears that where illegal mining occurs there is a proliferation of criminal activity (and high calibre firearms), the local community being terrorised, infrastructure damage through the illegal mining operations and sometimes even fatal injuries being suffered by the illegal miners in significant numbers. We can recall the deaths of 40 illegal miners in Welkom in 2016 in a methane explosion and the discovery of the bodies of 20 illegal miners in an abandoned gold mine near Orkney in the North West Province.
NOT UNIQUE TO SA
Illegal artisanal mining is not isolated to South Africa, as elsewhere in the continent countries such as Ghana is experiencing the rise of illegal artisanal mining. In South Africa, illegal mining is not isolated to gold mining but features in the platinum, diamond, chrome and coal mining industries. One of the factors that drive illegal mining is the loss of jobs in the sectors down to approximately 119, 000 jobs in 2014, from an earlier peak of 380, 000 jobs. A significant proportion of these jobs were migrant labour from neighbouring countries. As the job losses escalated so the remittances from these jobs diminished in the neighbouring countries. The result of this was that there is a large population of people with some technical knowledge of mining that are unemployed and become susceptible to the advances of the syndicates that operate these illegal mining operations. It is estimated that 70% of the illegal miners are undocumented foreigners.
LEVELS TO THIS THING
In 2017 the value of gold that was exported through the legal supply chain in South Africa was approximately 83 billion dollars while estimates of the value of gold being exported through illegal mining is anywhere in the region of 14 billion to 21 billion dollars. It is not clear that the illegal mining product only leaves the country through illegal means but at least some of it is being exported through legal channels. The Hawks use a pyramid to describe the hierarchy of how the illegal mining value chain operates where level one is the theft at the source, the Zama Zama themselves typically organised in syndicates. The second level comprise the runners and the illegal smelt houses and processing sector. Levels three to five are respectively the illegal buyers at local and provincial level, buyers at national level and the, finally the international market features at level five.
BOTTOM OF THE FOOD CHAIN
The Zama Zama are the most exploited at the bottom of the pyramid as the ones carrying the physical risk of bringing the product from underground, sometimes having to defend their territory with violence at the risk of losing their lives. There are reports of rival syndicates having shootouts underground with high powered firearms and explosives. They spend sometimes months underground procuring e.g., food at exorbitant pricing and having sex workers offering their services underground. They also do not receive anywhere close to market rate for the product they deliver. On the other side of the scale the organised crime syndicates at the apex of the pyramid are sophisticated and well-organised. They understand the rules well enough that they can operate globally with impunity. South Africa is the largest source of illicit gold on the African continent.
LIFTING COMMUNITIES OF POVERTY
In 2012, the Kimberley Process (the process that prevents the sale of conflict diamonds) adopted the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining for Development Framework which considers the concept of the formalisation of artisanal and informal mining. This has led to countries such as Ghana and the Ivory Coast developing an emerging socio-economic sector of these artisanal and informal mining communities. These countries and others on the continent believe that artisanal and informal mining has the potential to lift these communities out of poverty.
SOCIO ECONOMIC ISSUES IGNORED
South Africa has taken the approach of criminalising the practice of informal mining. ENACT, an organisation that researches transnational organised crime has issued a report where they state that SouthAfrica's policy response and enforcement is misguided and counter productive because it ignores poverty and the other socio-economic drivers behind the practice. The ENACT report also says that the South African government appear to deny the role the criminal networks play in supporting the illegal value chain. The government through the MPRD Act have placed the enforcement role of who is licensed and how they are allowed to operate in the hands of the Department of Minerals and Resources. The effect of this is that the SAPS have difficulty proactively monitoring the scrap dealers and gold export permit holders which are the first port of call for making illegal mining feasible
CURRENT APPROACH NOT WORKING
The problem of illegal mining is complicated. The illegal supply chain crosses borders as this is transnational organised crime and managing it requires regional cooperation. There are definite links to other forms of transnational organised crime such as human trafficking and money laundering. Perhaps it is time that government considers formalising the artisanal sector given that if artisanal mining is operating outside the legal framework there is no need to declare income and to operate in a "safe' way or to operate in the legal supply chain. Additionally government should consider tightening licensing requirements for scrap dealers and gold export permit holders. The centralisation of gold buying will ensure better compliance from the scrap sealers that purchase and process precious metals. The current approach does not appear to be working and we can assume as long as there is poverty, dreams of striking it rich and unsupervised unused mines, there will be illegal mining.
