A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built
Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in
fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy.
Johannesburg, 2016 / The Precious Metals Industry in South Africa is highly-regulated compared with other
mining and trading countries in the western world which have either deregulated their
precious metals industries, have only partial controls or have never seen the need to
regulate gold and platinum-group metals specifically. South Africa has a specific Act
of parliament, the Precious Metals Act, 2005 (a modification of Chapter 16 of the
Mining Rights Act, 1967), that regulates possession, trading and manufacture of
precious metals. Apart from the Russian Federation, no other country in the world
regulates gold and platinum-group metals possession, trading and fabrication to the
extent still done in South Africa. The requirement for such stringent controls was
based on the country’s pre-eminence in the production of gold and platinum over the
past fifty years, exchange controls (in the case of gold) and the contribution of gold
and platinum-group metals to foreign exchange earnings and to the country’s
economy as a whole.
However, much has changed in South Africa, in the world and indeed in the precious
metals industries domestically and globally and this work is the first attempt to
discuss and analyse developments and proposals that are impacting on the
regulation of the precious metals industries in South Africa. Of these, the World
Gold Council’s Conflict-Free Gold Standard provides a case for industry self-
regulation to complement, or substitute for government regulation in future. The
hypothesis at the Proposal Stage of this study was that the precious metals industry
in South Africa is over-regulated and should be deregulated. In this study, this
hypothesis is explored and debated.
The Resource Nationalism -motivated proposals, including Producer-Country Price
for Platinum, OPEC-type trade bloc for platinum, precious metal exchange and
single-channel marketing of platinum, were analysed in this study. It was concluded
that these are wanting in terms of cost/benefit or problematic in terms of international
agreements and trade and competition laws.
iii
The Precious Metals Act, 2005 itself was also critically analysed with a view to
evaluating what could be regulated better or deregulated in the light of recent
developments and proposals. It was found, ironically, that the old problem of illegal
mining and trading needs to be brought under control before deregulation of the
precious metals industry can begin. Nevertheless, in the run-up to deregulation (in
an estimated 10 to 15 years), industry self-regulation, co-regulation (with industry)
hallmarking, and a re-examination of how beneficiation is promoted should be
considered.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/20592 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Damarupurshad, Ashok Kumar |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (231 leaves), application/pdf |
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