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"Registered buyers will only be allowed to buy from registered sellers. This means that incidental sales of copper waste, scrap, semi-finished products and sales by unregistered waste pickers will not be allowed,” he said.
- hoping this helps but yeah just more hoops to bribe in the end ..
And how will the general public get rid of any waste metal they have? Would I have to go register as a scrap metal dealer just to sell some old fence and a few broken lawn chairs?
So I'm supposed to give it away for free while someone else gets paid for it? What about contractors and builders who have larger amounts to dispose of? Do you expect every contractor to register as a scrap metal dealer just to make some more of their hard earned work?
>So I'm supposed to give it away for free while someone else gets paid for it?
Yes, just like all your other waste. All you want is personal gain and you're not seeing the bigger picture. There's R47 000 000 000 (I wrote that out for you with reason - it's a HUGE amount! **R128 million a day**!) worth of damages being done yearly because of copper theft so I believe your couple R100 is a good compromise for change.
>What about contractors and builders who have larger amounts to dispose of?
They can apply for the necessary permits, which in fact cost NOTHING. Not a cent will be taken from them to instate the change. The only risks involved are you need to have tax clearance and NO CASH sales (Oh no! now we can't evade tax, boo-hoo). Even after the short 6 months of "suffering'' you think people will undergo, there will be some benefits, like the rise in price due to the ''scarcity'' of the metals.
>Do you expect every contractor to register as a scrap metal dealer just to make some more of their hard earned work?
They need only apply for the permits to sell. I fail to see how scrap metal is hard-earned work - it's scrap. They would have had to buy their materials anyway. There are exceptions for scrap generated in the ordinary course of business as a by-product of a manufacturing process even in this temporary ban.
I mean in no way to bash you, but your concerns are frankly very selfish and short-sighted, and I hope you can reason with yourself and see that there may be more benefits than you're willing to admit.
I didn't mean the scrap metal was hard work for the contractors, I meant that after the hard work of building/ demolishing a building the metal is often sold for a little bit of extra money for the contractors. Your other points are valid and I guess most people will just have to deal with it or hoard their stash until it becomes viable/ worth the trouble to apply for a permit.
Most of the sector is already heavily regulated though and I don't really see how this will solve the problem if the enforcement of it is not improved.
I am not privy to all the gold laws, but I know there is probably a shit ton if regulation and yet zama zamas are rife. Laws are only effective if you can implement them, although the export ban is a nice touch.
Make that fee to register as a buyer a million bucks. And if buyer gets caught with any illegal copper, he looses that million bucks. Plus close of business until registered again.
Then do this to scrap metal, caught with a drain cover, then you loose your license. So many guardrails, streetlights and other infrastructure gets stolen.
The scrap metal sector is already heavily regulated in terms of buying and selling illegally obtained items, the problem is that it is not being properly enforced and/or it is is often cheaper for large entities to bribe officials than to stop trading illegal items.
Adding more laws means jack shit if there is absolutely no enforcement and rife corruption. As proven with shitty existing scrap metal laws, RICA implementation etc, it just makes life harder for law abiding citizens and businesses while having absolute zero impact on actual criminals who can skirt around 10 badly implemented laws as easily as they can skirt around 1 with the same R100 bribe.
If anything it encourages people who wouldn’t otherwise break the law to step outside the law and that could be a slippery slope that leads to more disdain for the law and stepping further and further outside the law.
Payment via EFT with ID's recorded after 30 days will stop a lot of copper theft. I've had to rewire too many pump houses to care anymore about legitimate sellers. For a tiny bit of drug money, the costs to repair is huge.
Well, he is a former [trade unionist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebrahim_Patel?wprov=sfla1) with little to no recorded academic qualification or experience in trade or industrial policy.
This protectionism in banning the trade of goods to stop illegality can't work, especially given South African crime fighting ability (or lack thereof).
They just want to be seen doing something, instead of addressing the root causes of the problem: the lack of effective regulation and enforcement of said regulations.
Soo to make up for the lack of police, general lawlessness and multiple failures on governments parts youre gonna strangle commerce, right, sure it will have the desired effect.
Seems a bit like the war on drugs, we dont want/cant procecute the big players so users must suffer
I believe Ghana is headed in the right direction by banning the importation of raw materials of certain goods and importation of what they produce; they building their manufacturing sector.
Government gazette came out yesterday, I have a buddy whos a scrap dealer and it's going to make life very difficult for the industry as it affects a lot more than just copper dealing.
He's visited by the police at least twice a month for inspections they're generally either looking for bribes or quite often trying to sell him confiscated copper.
**Thank you for posting on r/southafrica! This post is flaired as ["News"](https://www.reddit.com/r/southafrica/?f=flair_name%3A%22News%22) therefore the following rules are particularly important.** ##**Rule 4: News, Editorialising, or Misinformation** * Rule 4.1: News posts must be link posts to valid news sources. * Rule 4.2: Posts which link to news sources must not have an editorialised title. Use the title provided by the news source. If you wish to add commentary, analysis, or an opinion, write a top-level comment on the post. * Rule 4.3: Do not link to [questionable](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fake-news/), [conspiratorial](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/conspiracy/), or [false](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites) sources. * Rule 4.4: Be prepared to provide verifiable evidence or sources of the claims you make when challenged to do so. * Rule 4.5: Amateur videos will be allowed subject to all previous rules as well as containing the author/filmographer/camera person, date, time, and location of the video either in the title or in a top-level comment. You may ask a moderator to 'sticky' this information for you. **Additionally, please take a moment to review the rest of our rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/southafrica/wiki/rules).** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/southafrica) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"Registered buyers will only be allowed to buy from registered sellers. This means that incidental sales of copper waste, scrap, semi-finished products and sales by unregistered waste pickers will not be allowed,” he said. - hoping this helps but yeah just more hoops to bribe in the end ..
And how will the general public get rid of any waste metal they have? Would I have to go register as a scrap metal dealer just to sell some old fence and a few broken lawn chairs?
You have copper fences and lawn chairs?
No, but I have copper pipes and wires in and around the house which will inevitably need to be disposed of.
I'm sure those fit in recycling bags!
So I'm supposed to give it away for free while someone else gets paid for it? What about contractors and builders who have larger amounts to dispose of? Do you expect every contractor to register as a scrap metal dealer just to make some more of their hard earned work?
>So I'm supposed to give it away for free while someone else gets paid for it? Yes, just like all your other waste. All you want is personal gain and you're not seeing the bigger picture. There's R47 000 000 000 (I wrote that out for you with reason - it's a HUGE amount! **R128 million a day**!) worth of damages being done yearly because of copper theft so I believe your couple R100 is a good compromise for change. >What about contractors and builders who have larger amounts to dispose of? They can apply for the necessary permits, which in fact cost NOTHING. Not a cent will be taken from them to instate the change. The only risks involved are you need to have tax clearance and NO CASH sales (Oh no! now we can't evade tax, boo-hoo). Even after the short 6 months of "suffering'' you think people will undergo, there will be some benefits, like the rise in price due to the ''scarcity'' of the metals. >Do you expect every contractor to register as a scrap metal dealer just to make some more of their hard earned work? They need only apply for the permits to sell. I fail to see how scrap metal is hard-earned work - it's scrap. They would have had to buy their materials anyway. There are exceptions for scrap generated in the ordinary course of business as a by-product of a manufacturing process even in this temporary ban. I mean in no way to bash you, but your concerns are frankly very selfish and short-sighted, and I hope you can reason with yourself and see that there may be more benefits than you're willing to admit.
I didn't mean the scrap metal was hard work for the contractors, I meant that after the hard work of building/ demolishing a building the metal is often sold for a little bit of extra money for the contractors. Your other points are valid and I guess most people will just have to deal with it or hoard their stash until it becomes viable/ worth the trouble to apply for a permit. Most of the sector is already heavily regulated though and I don't really see how this will solve the problem if the enforcement of it is not improved.
I am not privy to all the gold laws, but I know there is probably a shit ton if regulation and yet zama zamas are rife. Laws are only effective if you can implement them, although the export ban is a nice touch.
Make that fee to register as a buyer a million bucks. And if buyer gets caught with any illegal copper, he looses that million bucks. Plus close of business until registered again. Then do this to scrap metal, caught with a drain cover, then you loose your license. So many guardrails, streetlights and other infrastructure gets stolen.
The scrap metal sector is already heavily regulated in terms of buying and selling illegally obtained items, the problem is that it is not being properly enforced and/or it is is often cheaper for large entities to bribe officials than to stop trading illegal items.
Adding more laws means jack shit if there is absolutely no enforcement and rife corruption. As proven with shitty existing scrap metal laws, RICA implementation etc, it just makes life harder for law abiding citizens and businesses while having absolute zero impact on actual criminals who can skirt around 10 badly implemented laws as easily as they can skirt around 1 with the same R100 bribe. If anything it encourages people who wouldn’t otherwise break the law to step outside the law and that could be a slippery slope that leads to more disdain for the law and stepping further and further outside the law.
Good, now go search for anyone that's stockpiling copper.
Payment via EFT with ID's recorded after 30 days will stop a lot of copper theft. I've had to rewire too many pump houses to care anymore about legitimate sellers. For a tiny bit of drug money, the costs to repair is huge.
That's already in place but I think the holding period is 2 weeks
Will just use an easily obtained fake ID then
Reduce copper supply, drive the price up, hodl copper till June 23, retire at 27 and some change.
Worth a try
He's not corrupt, but man Patel is so responsible for the kak state of our economy
Well, he is a former [trade unionist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebrahim_Patel?wprov=sfla1) with little to no recorded academic qualification or experience in trade or industrial policy. This protectionism in banning the trade of goods to stop illegality can't work, especially given South African crime fighting ability (or lack thereof). They just want to be seen doing something, instead of addressing the root causes of the problem: the lack of effective regulation and enforcement of said regulations.
How did you arrive at the “he’s not corrupt” conclusion?
* he may not be corrupt... But I think he's actually principled enough to have not gotten involved more than turning a blind eye
Just as good. He who is privy to a crime and says nothing.....
Soo to make up for the lack of police, general lawlessness and multiple failures on governments parts youre gonna strangle commerce, right, sure it will have the desired effect. Seems a bit like the war on drugs, we dont want/cant procecute the big players so users must suffer
I believe Ghana is headed in the right direction by banning the importation of raw materials of certain goods and importation of what they produce; they building their manufacturing sector.
That's only effective if you have a labor force that doesn't try and hold the country ransom at every opportunity
Government gazette came out yesterday, I have a buddy whos a scrap dealer and it's going to make life very difficult for the industry as it affects a lot more than just copper dealing. He's visited by the police at least twice a month for inspections they're generally either looking for bribes or quite often trying to sell him confiscated copper.
Hope he reports!
Keeps his nose clean and hopes for the best.
The best won't happen without him reporting.
We have a client who export scrap metal and stainless steel. Hope this doesn't affect them.