Olivia Sterns and Andres R Martinez
THE ANC had been responsible in its relationship with investors and did not have immediate plans to boost taxes in mining, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said yesterday.
“Taxing a particular industry is not within our radar at the moment,” Gordhan said. “The assurance we want to give investors, mining houses, others, is that the ANC, in 18 years, has demonstrated immense responsibility in the way it has managed its relationship with business and investors.”
Gordhan is trying to shore up confidence as the ANC’s push for “radical” measures to combat a 25 percent unemployment rate unsettles investors, and after Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s downgraded South Africa for the first time since the end of apartheid.
The ANC is set to rule on proposals to nationalise mining assets and raise taxes at its national leadership conference in December, in Mangaung.
Taxes are “part of our discussion in broad policy terms”, Gordhan said. “When and how and if we exercise it, it’s a matter that we will have to decide within the context of what is happening at that particular point in time.”
The mining industry is facing the worst labour unrest since 1994. Strikes cut output by R10.1 billion this year, the Treasury said.
Violence “is not what we want to be known for around the world”, Gordhan said. “The strikes have cut exports and reduced government revenue.”
The ANC Youth League and its former leader, Julius Malema, led a campaign for the government to nationalise mines, forcing the ANC to agree to investigate its viability.
“We hope that finally at the ANC conference in December we will resolve that,” Gordhan said. “Many of us have expressed our view that that is no panacea for the problems we have.” – Bloomberg