Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani last week expressed the company’s willingness to play a constructive role in helping South Africa to arrive at solutions involving the diversification of land ownership and ensuring land productivity.

Speaking to journalists at a year-end media function, Cutifani urged the South African government to articulate what land-issue “excellence looked like”.

“We’ll do everything we can to be a positive participant in the land conversations,” Cutifani said, promising to communicate in the next few weeks a little more what the company could do on the land issue.

“When we talk about our involvement and what we’re trying to do, our regional collaboration work with the Limpopo government, working with other mining companies, looking at how we can provide infrastructure around the operations in the province and, with other mining companies, where we can help develop potential for the land is absolutely critical, because I don’t think it is simply about land. It’s about the development of land and it’s about opportunity,” he said.

“If we can play our part, we think that’s a significant role we can play in helping South Africa find a pathway. We want to understand what we can do to help everyone find the right solution, given history, context and given what we can do to try to help find a solution because it’s only when we find that solution that we’ll answer the question that many investors are asking around their willingness to invest in the country. We’re just looking for how we can be a positive contributor in the debate, without being judgemental, without taking a view, but certainly from our point of view, using all that we have to make a positive contribution,” he added at the function attended by Mining Weekly.

His prepared speech also provided insight into the far-reaching manner in which the 101-year-old mining company was pondering its purpose in the modern world and the role it needed to play.

It is reaffirming the world’s need for a company like Anglo American and “reimagining” mining to improve people’s lives. It is thinking very differently about the physical processes of mining and what it can do differently for host communities.

“This is about step-change innovation – it’s about our physical and societal footprint,” he said of the company’s FutureSmart Mining sustainable mining programme. The technologies being developed and deployed are changing approaches to extraction, processing and marketing.

“We hope that, in terms of this beautiful country, the people and the mining industry will realise the full potential that sits beneath your feet. Let’s make sure we make 2019 a year to remember,” Cutifani urged.