South Africa's Impala Platinum (Implats) has explained that the sale of its 27.1 per cent holding in Lonplats will not be sufficient to comply with the demands of SA's black economic empowerment (BEE) mining charter.

CE Keith Rumble argued that the firm never stated the transaction would be sufficient to reach the charter's 15 per cent black-ownership target.

Mr Rumble maintained that Implat's empowerment efforts are continuing but acknowledged that the firm would not receive enough BEE credits from the Lonplats deal to satisfy the first five-year demands of the socio-economic mining reforms.

According to Mining Weekly, he told investors that empowerment in the mining industry had to be wide-ranging.

'We have to have transformation in our core business,' he insisted.

Implats and Lonplats agreed to set up a new company named Newco last year and offer BEE firms a controlling stake in the firm to help comply with the South African mining charter.