Local consultancy XA Global Trade Advisors has launched a website to provide pinprick information on South Africa’s contentious scrap metals industry to help with accurate data on the estimated R20 billion-a-year industry, currently in limbo over efficient regulations.
This as the industry awaits considerations of the new Minister of the Trade Industry and Competition (dtic), Parks Tau to pronounce on its regulation following the dropping of an exports moratorium in January after it had been implemented intermittently over the past two years.
XA founder and CEO Donald MacKay yesterday said the myscrapmatters platform would have update information from scrap metal suppositories including Transnet and Eskom, scrap value from upstream manufactures to steel mills, cable theft data, landfill data, and updates on export duties among the many offerings.
“The industry is regulated but there is need for accurate information that will enable regulations to be based on current scientific data rather than someone’s gut feeling. We hope the information will be useful to journalists, parliamentarians and researchers,” Mackay said.
According to the website, about 2.5 to 3 millions tons of scrap metal are recycled in the country annually, with the industry contributing significantly to the economy an estimated annual net worth of between R15bn to R20bn.
MacKay said the information was not necessarily provided to lobby government on industry issues but essentially to provide accurate data as it was currently obtained from various sources, and vulnerable to distortion.
Elias Monage, president of the Steel and Engineering Industry Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa), said though he had not encountered the e-platform yet, there would be a keen interest in anything that sought to address the challenges faced by the metals sector.
Monage said the banning of the sale and export of scrap metals, which had been done by the previous minister of the dtic intermittently over the past two years until it was lifted in January this year, was not effective and ill-advised.
He said the question of public vandalism should not be put squarely on the industry because it was done in various shapes and forms, adding that a holistic approach towards the protection of public infrastructure, interlinked with business, community and security cluster collaboration was needed.
He said Seifsa and other industry players were pushing for an audience with Tau to advise on the need to consult the industry prior to issuing of new regulations and would emphasise for an industry dialogue on the way forward.
“The banning of scrap metals is a different point altogether because even that one did not work and that is the reason it was uplifted,” Monage said.
“If we then talk about the vandalism, you cannot just have a linear approach, you need to have an integrated approach in terms of the issues. Legislation over legislation is not going to solve the issue.”
He said incidents over the past few months involving the collapse of infrastructure and outstanding steel supplies for some construction projects that had been delayed pointed to a recategorising of the various grades of steel and the directive for their use in different requirements as well as the role required of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS).
“We have to help the minister understand the various processes of metals and their uses. There are different processes for primary and secondary steel, between blast furnace and electric furnace products, and their uses,” he said.
“There is a classification of metals for use in buildings, roads, dams and we need to have a debate and discussions so that what is done is properly configured,” Monage said.
Last year, former Transnet CEO Portia Derby told Parliamentarians that the ban on the export of scrap metal initiated by the government to curb the theft of copper cables and other grid infrastructure had inadvertently created cartels.
BUSINESS REPORT