He says the difference has been misinterpreted by the Human Rights Commission in its national inquiry into the industry.

Appearing before the Commission in Johannesburg, Mantashe stressed that government has created policies and provided funding to support small-scale and artisanal miners in the country.

He argued that the 2024 disaster at the Stilfontein mine in North West province was not due to regulatory failure on the government’s part, but a risk the illegal miners took despite the danger.

More than 70 illegal miners died underground after law enforcement officers blocked the entrances to the mine to flush out illegal miners.

“We are here to the Human Right Commission, you are conducting an Inquiry on artisanal and small-scale mining but your emphasis is on illegal mining. Our starting point is that your framework is wrong, you are having an inquiry on a wrong issue to resolve a different issue, so therefore this inquiry if it is about illegal mining, focus on illegal mining for what it stands for, it’s not for artisanal mining. So, if your recommendation conflates the two, I will be opposed to that.”

—SABC—