R100-million fines for kingpins as illegal mining booms into national security crisis…

Illegal mining kingpins are in the crosshairs when a new Illegal Mining Bill becomes law with R100 million fines and 30-year prison sentences on the cards. However, Independent Governance Expert Richard Chelin tells Chris Steyn that in the six years it has taken the government to draft the bill, illegal mining has gone from “a regulatory headache to a national security crisis…but beyond the money, we're talking about sinkholes, we're talking about environmental degradation, water contamination. We've seen damaged infrastructure. We've seen what explosions have done recently in West Rand. And also we've seen the rise of violent crime in mining communities. Day in, day out, week in, week out we've seen on the news gangs, Zama Zama gangs, fighting each other and innocent individuals and people getting caught in the crossfire. But the one thing is the cost is enormous and we've been paying it while waiting for the bill to come through.”