Nation's eyes should have been on indaba

Being a bit of a veteran of Cape Town's annual Mining Indaba, I would argue the event has more relevance to the country's prospects for the year than the state of the nation address with all its pomp and ceremony.

Admittedly, the address has become a lot more colourful in recent years, courtesy of a vocal opposition that has everyone in parliament, including the speaker, paging through procedure rule books.

The state of the nation address is where our political theatre is acted out, in recent years at least.

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And worrying as it may be, our country is just one more on a growing list of problems in the world basket. Every corner of the globe, in one way or another, is facing tough questions. That's not to minimise our political mess in any way, but it helps to ease the blood pressure to know that the UK is in a rather slow car crash and the US is in a faster one.

The Mining Indaba is the stage where sentiment is shaped on the country's biggest export earner, the resources industry.

While the sector's share of GDP has shrunk into single digits in recent years - because of the growth of the services sector and some own goals - resources still accounts for the bulk of our export earnings and in turn drives the value of the rand.

As such, this event is far more of a significant marker for the state we are in than the performance of our first citizen or the theatrics of his biggest critics in the red corner.

Whoever are South Africa's chosen representatives at the indaba are important. Their performances are as important as the delivery of the state of the nation, if not more so.

This antiquated industry's highs and lows match those of the country.

While consumer spending took off after the Chinese- inspired super-commodity cycle came to an end - best seen by Mr Price's rise of almost 700% rise since end-2008 to its record high in April 2015 - we now know that it was a short-term boom.

So you would guess in a climate where commodity prices may have finally reached their bottom that the main aim would be to send a message, in meeting with investors and executives in corridors and conference rooms around the indaba, that they should dust off expansion plans.

But someone failed to tell this to Mosebenzi Zwane, the mineral resources minister and representative of South Africa's business case.

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For whatever reason, his performance did not inspire much confidence, which is the single ingredient most needed to improve prospects for Rustenburg and other mining jurisdictions.

The re-emergence of Chinese demand for raw materials, the rise in geopolitical tension, and higher growth in old Europe have taken care of the other part of the equation: stable to rising commodity prices.

But instead of at the very least showing investors that SA is open for business, that a review of the mining charter would provide a final and certain word on transformation, that section 54 wasn't a tool to beat an industry into submission ... well, investors in the main left this week's conference with a bitter taste in the mouth.

They were talking about better prospects elsewhere in Africa, including places with far higher risk premiums, such as Democratic Republic of Congo.

Those are alternatives that will be rammed down the throats of South Africa-based miners. Harmony's US shareholder base is more than 55%, AngloGold Ashanti's 32% and Gold Fields's 31%.

To whom are they more likely to listen? And what will be said at Monday's debriefing session?

E-mail derbyr@sundaytimes.co.za or find him on Twitter @ronderby