On Thursday, the 12th of January 2017, the Council for Geoscience (CGS) was honoured by a visit of the Minister of Mineral Resources, Honourable Mr Mosebenzi Zwane (MP), accompanied by the Director-General, Mr David Msiza, and his delegation to the head office in Pretoria. The Acting CEO of the CGS, Mr Mosa Mabuza, welcomed the ministerial delegation and Executive Management in the auditorium and called upon Mr Msiza to introduce the Minister to the CGS employees.
In his address to the employees, the Minister acknowledged the role that the CGS plays in the mandate of the Department of Mineral Resources to achieve its goals in transformation, economic growth and investment attraction. He emphasised the work of the CGS as key in the Research and Development initiatives of the country. One of the mandates of the CGS is mapping and he urged the scientists to keep on working hard in returning to the position of being respected in geo-mapping in South Africa and other countries. The Minister further recognised the long service employees who work tirelessly with pride and distinction to achieve the goals of the CGS.
During his visit to the CGS, the Honourable Minister and his delegation visited the facilities of the CGS Laboratory. Mr Supi Tlowana, the Laboratory Services Manager, presented an overview of the activities of the Laboratory. The laboratory services are utilised by the scientists to evaluate samples from internal projects and by external customers. The delegation visited the following sections:
Facility: XRF, Chemistry and Mineralogy. During the visit, the Laboratory Services Manager briefly explained to the delegation the technology of instruments such as:
- The new Wavelength Dispersive XRF spectrometer for elemental analysis in solid samples.
- Three ICP-MS instruments for ultra-trace liquid sample analysis under clean laboratory conditions.
- The new ICP-OES for trace liquid sample analysis.
- The SEM for mineralogy identification.
The X-Ray Diffractometer which is an instrument used for qualitative and semi-quantitative minerals identification.
The Laboratory Services Manager also acknowledged the funding made available towards the laboratory equipment recapitalisation project as it has provided an opportunity to procure instruments and equipment with state of the art technology to improve on quality and replace obsolete instruments.
Furthermore, the Minister visited the CGS seismograph network screens which are situated on the 6th floor of the main building. Ms Michelle Grobbelaar, the microzonation project manager, explained how the screens can display ground movement, registered by the seismograph stations installed both nationally and within neighbouring countries. The monitors can also display the automatically calculated time, location and size of the tremors. She pointed out the mining regions in South Africa where the CGS has installed a denser network of monitoring stations (Klerksdorp, Carletonville and Johannesburg) to be used for further research into mine safety. She concluded by mentioning the various international networks to which the CGS contributes data (AfricaArray, CTBT and IOTWS) and the benefits of these networks to the CGS and the country.
In conclusion, Minister Mosebenzi Zwane eluded to have a better appreciation of its Stated Owned Entities (SOE) with the alignment of social-economic activities and transformation.
