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You’d better hold on to your jaw as the Remuneration reports from South Africa’s top five biggest mining companies have recently been revealed.

BusinessTech looked at the five biggest mining companies by market capitalisation listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) to see what their CEOs earned last year. These companies are BHP Billiton, Glencore, Anglo American, Gold Fields, and South32.

The article noted ‘that some of these companies are multinational, meaning their remuneration figures were presented in dollars or pounds. To standardise the salaries in the article, the total remuneration amounts were converted to rands using the applicable exchange rate’.

Here’s where you grab your jaw, because the top earner for 2023 was BHP Billiton’s Chief Executive Mike Henry, who took home a staggering R249.5 million for the year. This includes base salary, short-term incentives, cash bonuses, benefits, and long-term incentive plans. Henry’s yearly income equates to R684,650 per day.

Glencore’s Gary Nagle came in second, although his salary wasn’t as high, at only R105.7 million, or R289,589 a day.

Anglo-American CEO, Duncan Wanblad, came in third with R83.1 million, with South32’s Graham Kerr taking home R74.2 million for the year. Poor Martin Preece, as interim CEO at Gold Fields, had to fly coach with R51 million – the smallest remuneration amongst the top 5.

According to the Minerals Council of South Africa, the mining sector is an important contributor to South Africa’s fiscus and its citizens. Over the last financial year, the South African mining industry contributed R425.6 billion or 6.2% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Additionally, the sector added more than 7,500 jobs last year, employing 477,000 people.

Total wages increased by 7% to R186.5 billion, supporting livelihoods in a weak domestic economy characterised by high unemployment.

However, despite the encouraging numbers, the council added that the industry is facing major headwinds in South Africa.

“Towards the end of 2023 and into 2024, several companies announced restructuring processes to reposition themselves with the reduced electricity availability, severe rail constraints, harbour delays, and a downturn in the prices of coal and platinum group metals (PGMs),” it said.

The mining sector, especially for those concerned with Platinum Group Metals (PGMs), has been severely impacted by dropping metal prices, with major players announcing thousands of job cuts in South Africa.

From the bottom up, of course.