Ramaphosa promises Northern Cape a new industrial future, and says he wants South Africans rich

Government has committed itself to creating the conditions needed for a major Northern Cape mining expansion to succeed, with the Presidency framing the Vedanta Zinc International Gamsberg Phase II project as the start of a new industrial centre in the province.

In a broadcast published by The Presidency of South Africa on YouTube, the message delivered at the inaugural event recognised that an investment of this size depends on commercially viable electricity, reliable infrastructure and other enabling conditions. Government, the broadcast said, will work with the data, and the President will return to the site repeatedly to make sure that what is needed for the project’s future is put into effect.

The stated objective is beneficiation. The Presidency said the zinc mined at Gamsberg should become the foundation of industries that manufacture in South Africa, employ more people and create prosperity and wealth locally. It described the Northern Cape as exceptionally well positioned to become one of the country’s next major centres of industrial growth.

The broadcast also carried a blunt statement of purpose on wealth creation, saying South Africans should not be shy about wanting to be rich and that this should be an overriding national objective. It linked that ambition to the poverty and dispossession left by apartheid rule, saying people should have assets, skills and wealth.

The transcript names President Cyril Ramaphosa and refers to a minister without naming the portfolio. It gives no figures for the size of the investment, no timelines for construction or production, and no detail on how the electricity and infrastructure commitments will be delivered. Those questions are left open by the broadcast.

The source is The Presidency of South Africa (YouTube), published on 16 October 2026 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm9YNF2-RwY.