Africa-Press – South-Africa. Amid a deepening energy crisis, Minister Gwede Mantashe faced fierce criticism for failing to fulfil his mandate during his department’s budget vote debate on Tuesday. The mineral resources and energy minister was, however, quick to dismiss the critique, taking aim at the DA for being “desperate” and offering “no ideas”.
In his budget vote speech on Tuesday, the minister outlined the department’s achievements and challenges. On the energy front, he highlighted the procurement of 10GW of green power through coming bid windows, but warned grid access presented the most significant challenge.
In terms of mining, he emphasised government’s efforts to support exploration through a new strategy and a junior mining fund, but he warned that environmental justice groups and other lobbyists were “blocking development”.
Opposition MPs were pointed in their critique, with the department’s role in the power supply crisis taking centre stage.
The DA’s Kevin Mileham said the department had demonstrated no urgency or drive to improve the situation, saying:
The EFF’s Phiwaba Madokwe said the department is failing to uphold and fulfil its objectives and provide the necessary services to the citizens of South Africa, both in the mining and energy sector.
“The energy sector is in shambles, and the three ministers are more concerned about catfights over the powers of Eskom and energy supply … at a time when South Africa needs direction and a stable energy plan the most,” Madokwe said.
Madokwe added:
The ACDP’s Wayne Thring said the department is mandated to ensure transparent, efficient regulation of South Africa’s mineral resources and to ensure the secure and sustainable provision of energy in support of economic growth. It is also required to oversee the petroleum sector, ensure mine health and safety, rehabilitation of mines, enhancing energy efficiency and managing nuclear energy in accordance with international commitments.
“Clearly, this department has failed in carrying out all of the aspects of its mandate, and it has failed to implement its stated medium-term priorities and chief of these failures has to be the failure to ensure the secure and sustainable provision of energy in support of economic growth,” said Thring.
“The ACDP notes that access to electricity has been greatly extended. However, government has failed to keep up with demand due to poor planning, maladministration, despotism, looting, the state capture missing billions, and rampant corruption – resulting in an inability to keep the lights on.”
The DA’s James Lorimer highlighted how legislation and regulation had suffocated mining investment.
“The industry needs to be allowed to fly. We need more mining, not less. We need mining that focuses on the long life of mines rather than cherry picking and sterilising because mines expect their investments will be snatched from them by a rapacious state,” he said.
“We need to understand that mining can rescue our economy if we only let it.”
In closing out the budget debate, the bulk of which was spent hitting back at the DA, Mantashe accused the opposition party of being “too desperate to get into power” and intent on taking South Africa “back to the apartheid era”.
“It’s a pity that when you come to a budget debate, you are expected to get ideas now when you have an opposition party that doesn’t make that contribution, you leave the debate poorer,” he said.
Addressing the issue of legislation and regulation, Mantashe said this implied “it must be free for all; there must be no governance”.
Seemingly referring to former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter, Mantashe said an “alpha” could not do the job of a “fixer”. “That is the room we’re dealing with now, and we’re going to fix it, I can tell you,” he said.
In closing, the minister thanked the MPs for their contributions. “We’ll take ideas where there are ideas; where they are no ideas, we’ll just ignore them,” he said.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
