W
e’ve all been faced with situations in our lives where we’ve
had to make tough decisions. Such decisions often require a
long thought process which includes weighing up the pros
and cons. As difficult as it is to make such decisions, it is necessary,
especially if they are being made for the right reasons. If we had
to sum up 2019, it would be safe to say that it was a year of tough
decision making.
The beginning of the year got off to a bang for the mining industry
after a very successful Investing in African Mining Indaba. The year
2019 saw the conference celebrating 25 years. Not only that, but for
the first time, two heads of state – South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and
Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo – were present at the conference.
The mood was upbeat, and most speakers were saying exactly
what investors wanted to hear. Everybody was still on a high following
Ramaphosa’s victory at the ANC’s elective conference in December
2017. There was talk of a ‘new dawn’ and Ramaphoria.
Then the moment of truth arrived with the elections in May 2019.
For many businesses and industries, the post-election period was
what many believed would be a turning point for the country in many
aspects – most importantly economically and politically. For business,
the outcome of the elections would determine whether businesses
kept their doors open or had to close up shop.
As expected, the ANC won and Ramaphosa was inaugurated as the
country’s president. Reality quickly sunk in when everybody realised
that there was still a very long way to go before the we’d start reaping
the rewards of the new dawn.
It soon became obvious that all the expectations of a better
economy, improved service delivery, more jobs and rooting out
corruption would take longer than expected. What the country was
faced with was the opposite of a new dawn. Corruption was still there,
the unemployment rate increased, the economy was still reeling after
a technical recession and service delivery was no better. The political
landscape wasn’t too promising either.
In light of this reality, many businesses had to make tough
decisions to weather the storm. Probably the hardest thing about
making such decisions is that they have negative consequences for
those who are closest to us. Closer to home, we also had to make hard
decisions to deal with the challenging situation at the time. As hard as
it was to make those decisions, they were made with the readers’ best
interests in mind.
Every dark cloud has a silver lining because the challenging times
also presented great opportunities. In September 2019, the first issue
www. africanmining.co.za www.mining.co.za www.MTEexpos.co.za
of African Mining (Incorporating Mining Mirror) was published. This
new publication focuses on the politics and socio-economic factors,
and how they drive transformation of the mining industry in Africa.
Readers will be happy to know that our annual publications (African
Mines Handbook and the Mining and Industrial Suppliers Directory) are
ever improving to maintain them as invaluable resources.
MTE also managed to make lemonade from lemons when they
managed to secure a show in Mozambique. The shows in Tete were
very successful. In addition, the travelling exhibition enjoyed overall
success throughout 2019, despite the challenges. Most exhibitors and
visitors gave positive feedback about their experience with MTE.
So where to from here? Nobody really knows what 2020 holds.
But from where we are sitting, things look promising. The MTE 2020
calendar is out, and looking at it, one can’t help but get excited. This
year will see the travelling exhibition visit four African countries with
Namibia being added to the calendar this year. In addition, there
will be four new shows included in the 2020 calendar. The team also
continues to work hard to produce top-class publications.Although
we are far from truly experiencing the new dawn, we are on the right
track. Slowly but surely, we are starting to see the results. According
to Stats SA, the economy grew by 3.1% in the second quarter of
2019. The slight growth meant the country was out of the technical
recession. Furthermore, statistics also showed that mining was among
the industries that contributed to the growth. As the strongest
performer in the second quarter, the mining industry expanded by
14.4%, the best performance since 2016.
This goes to show that sometimes difficult decisions need to be
taken in order to achieve success. Looking ahead to 2020, the goal is
to build on the success and lessons learnt from 2019 to achieve bigger
milestones in the next year.
Wishing everyone happy and safe holidays, and a
prosperous 2020!
From the Mining and Industrial Suppliers Directory team.
ANNUAL SUPPLIERS DIRECTORY 2020 3
Hard decisions
lead to positive outcomes