South Africa’s planned mineral rights database is set to be instituted within the next 10 months, as disclosed by one of the country’s senior officials.
By delaying the adoption of the so-called cadastre, an online registration that shows mining and prospecting rights, the country’s government is taking the risk of pushing away potential investors.
As presently constituted, businesses have been provided with the new method to apply for mining licenses.
“We recognise that we have to move with speed,” Jacob Mbele, Director-General of the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, said at a conference in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The government has “set ourselves a target” to migrate all nine South African provinces into the cadastre by the end of March 2027, he said.
As reported by Bloomberg, the South African officials revealed that, to date, only the Western Cape, the region with the lowest level of mining activity in South Africa, has been integrated into the system.
