Can zama zamas be brought into the formal sector?

The abandoned Mintails gold mining operations in Krugersdorp are a hive of activity on a Monday morning as illegal miners, known as zama zamas, get to work. Three men walk purposefully down the road, equipped with headlamps and hessian sacks; they smile and greet. They say they are from Mozambique.

Across the way, another group of men are digging with pickaxes. "It’s only to get bread," one miner says. "The gold here is too small."

PODCAST: Taking Care of Business - Is it all over for SA's gold mines?

Subscribe: iono.fm | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Pocket Cast | Player.fm

Small as the scraps may be, the combined efforts of illegal mining in SA translate into an industrial-scale black market. According to research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, SA is losing R14bn a year to illegal gold mining.

Gideon du Plessis, general secretary of Solidarity trade union, says that apart from the damage caused to mining infrastructure, the burgeoning black market has an impact on mainstream gold sales.

There is a direct link between increased illegal mining and the rise in retrenchments by legitimate mining companies, he says. "Zama zamas are the biggest threat for the gold mining sector. We need to get illegal mining under control."

Any mining that takes place without a permit is deemed illegal, but the minister of mineral resources, Gwede Mantashe, often talks about his department’s intention to formalise illegal mining.

The government has yet to produced a comprehensive policy on how it would do so. However, last year it granted a permit to a group of illegal miners extracting diamonds in the Kimberley area. There may be scope to formalise activities like these where the miners do not trespass or invade the mines.

But where illegal miners endanger their lives to access shafts that have been closed because they are not economically viable, it’s hard to imagine they could continue their activities if constrained by regulation.