Nationalisation will not work - Chamber of Mines

Nationalisation has never been successful anywherplantas de produccion de mineral de hierroe in the world, the Chamber of Mines president Sipho Nkosi said on Tuesday. "Simple, indisputable facts which show conclusively that nationalisation has never been an enduring, successful system anywhere in the world where it has been implemented, are readily available," he told the annual general meeting of the chamber in Johannesburg.

"An antiquated and discredited practice, nationalisation has impoverished many countries -- several of them in Africa." Nkosi said the chamber welcomed the fact that President Jacob Zuma and Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu had stated that nationalisation was not government policy. The ANC's recent national general council resolved that its leadership would investigate the issue, after repeated calls for mine nationalisation from its youth league. Nkosi pointed out that mining is a "universally tough business and not an easy route to the accumulation of immense wealth". The cyclical nature of mining made it risky, he said.