Its blueprint for the local industry will be debated by the ANC's national general council next month, although youth league spokesman Floyd Shivambu makes it clear there is nothing to debate.
It has all the answers, and anyone who attempts to interrogate these answers is met with contempt, fury and vitriol. Just ask SA Communist Party deputy leader Jeremy Cronin.
Shivambu, 27, is an exceptionally angry young man who regards every question as a personal insult. Did the youth leaguers who composed the nationalisation document seek the advice of experts?, I ask.
"No," he snaps. "We don't need experts. That information is readily available."
One is reminded of former president Thabo Mbeki surfing the Internet at midnight. And we all know where that got us. But the task team did not use the Internet. Not for that, anyway.
"One can easily acquire that information from the Department of Mineral Resources."
When I asked ANC secretary-general and former National Union of Mineworkers president Gwede Mantashe about the youth league's determination to foist nationalisation of mines on the country, he said he didn't know where they were coming from. In terms of the 2002 Mineral and Petroleum Resources Act, the state already owned the mineral rights of the country.
Companies extracted minerals under licence on the state's behalf and paid handsomely for the privilege in the form of taxes.
"That's a very simplistic, wrong conclusion," snaps Shivambu. "We're calling for the nationalisation of mines, meaning that the state must be involved in the actual extraction, production and processing of mineral resources."
Does the state have the skills?
"There are lots of skills that are readily available," he replies.
From the private companies presently operating the mines?
"Where do these companies get their skills? The skills that are in mining come from public institutions. What the state has been doing throughout is to take this capacity and give it to the private sector almost for free."
The gist of Shivambu's explanation is that mining engineers are produced by universities, which are funded by the government. Now, instead of giving them away, the state will simply keep them for itself.
"So there is no skills shortage. Mines have never cried about a skills shortage, not even once."
What of management skills?
"The state will have to rechannel available skills in the public sector to mining management."
"Where do you get that from? That is an urban myth again."
State-owned enterprises are in crisis because of "criminality and management squabbles", he says. It has nothing to do with state ownership per se.
"So this whole urban myth that the state inherently does not have the capacity to run enterprises is nonsensical."
The youth league says all rights will be controlled by a state mining company, which will have its own mines, 100%-owned and operated by the state, and allocate rights to the rest.
On what basis?
They will go to those who agree to the state mining company's conditions, Shivambu says.
"The main condition will be that the state will own 60% of the operation. Two, that the majority of minerals excavated are going to be locally beneficiated, so that we don't just extract minerals and throw them into the sea like we currently do."
Who would invest in these mines under those terms? "That is a stupid question," he snaps.
"If the Anglos want to continue extracting our minerals they must be in partnership with the state-owned mining company. If they want to continue mining in South Africa."
They'd have to relinquish 60% of their mines to the state? "Yes."
How's the state going to pay?
I am missing the point, he replies angrily. "The state is bringing minerals, and then the mining corporations that are currently operating, they are bringing their infrastructure and the skills they were given by government. So they bring those and then we work together moving forward. Why do we have to pay money for that?
"We are moving from a perspective that the state is not going to pay anyone anything."
It's going to expropriate?
"No, let's leave expropriation," Shivambu says impatiently. "Anglo American does not own minerals in South Africa. The state is in total control and ownership of the minerals. "
How can we be so sure "the people" are going to be the beneficiaries and not just a privileged bunch of ANC deployees, I ask?
"Do you agree that the ANC is the legitimate government of the people?"
So how can they take money from the people when, in effect, they are the people? Stupid question. Again.
"The government is going to be building schools, providing quality healthcare, funding free education, making sure that there are adequate jobs for all our people - out of this mineral wealth."
I repeat the question: what assurances could there possibly be that the money won't end up in the pockets of ANC deployees?
Shivambu sounds so extraordinarily angry that if I were not on the other end of a rather bad line I suspect he'd call me a "bloody agent" and have me frog-marched from the room.
"Do you think that the trillions of rands that can be taken out of mine profits can be eaten by ANC deployees? That is stupidity."
Cronin says this nationalisation wheeze is about bailing out indebted BEE mining interests?
"That is the most foolish argument I have ever heard in my entire life," says Shivambu.
Is he expecting opposition to the youth league's plans at the national general council?
"No, because there isn't any substantial opposition to nationalisation," Shivambu replies.
Didn't minister Susan Shabangu say not in her lifetime?
"She has never come with a substantial argument."
President Jacob Zuma has said that nationalisation is not ANC policy, but Shivambu is unimpressed.
"Nationalisation of mines is going to happen. The sooner people get used to that the better."
Source: Sunday Times
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