The Impact of Underinvestment in Rail and Power Infrastructure on the Mining Value Chain in the Northern Cape

Mining remains the primary driver of human and economic development in South Africa. The effectiveness of the Manganese mining in the Northern Cape depends on the efficiencies in using technology inputs such as power and logistics. The paper reviews the impact of underinvestment in economic infrastructure on the ability of the Manganese Mining Value Chain to unlock development potential in the metalliferous mineral’s rich Northern Cape. The paper argues that the dynamic equation based on the development of rail and the expansion of electricity generation capacity”, their use in the Manganese beneficiation value chain has direct causality towards growth.Power and logistics variables are endogenous to the dynamic structure of the Manganese value chain, and its ability to thrive depends on its internal structure. We take the system dynamics view that only elements within the boundary of a system, such as the Manganese value chain, determine its dynamic behavior. The evaluation of the impact of power and rail logistics on the development in the Northern Cape over ten years, a multi-variate simulation, is based on a system dynamics environment, acknowledging that the impact is more likely to be because of several variables acting against each other.