Mantashe vows to legally challenge those opposing government’s gas, oil exploration efforts

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister, Gwede Mantashe, says government will challenge at the Constitutional Court all the cases that interdict government against gas and oil exploration.

Mantashe was addressing the Africa Oil Week conference under way in Cape Town.

Government has in recent times been interdicted by the courts in the country to carry out explorations following objections by various communities, interested NGO’s and pressure groups.

Mantashe says exploration for minerals is part of the development that is needed in the country.

In December last year, the Grahamstown High court ordered Shell and the Minister for Energy and Resources to cease blasting for oil exploration on the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape. Earlier this year the Cape Town High court ruled in favour of the fishing community of the west coast against the Australian geo-science company, also being ordered to cease blasting.

However, Mantashe says such rulings will not kill the enthusiasm of government to develop communities.

“There’s no court case that we’ve lost that we will leave without the reach to the apex court of the country. So any case we lost in Grahamstown will end up in the Constitutional Court, that’s how determined we are. Because South Africa needs development more than ever today. We cannot give up and die in poverty, hunger is killing more people than anything else and we have a responsibility to develop the country and fight the hunger.”

Mantashe was addressing the African delegates, blaming African leadership for failure to adequately feed its people. He says there’s enough minerals and land to produce even fertilisers that can also feed other continents.

“I’m submitting that it’s a leadership question, we’ve got the land, we’ve got soil, so we have minerals that can produce fertilisers galore, but we’re not using them, we must debate that. Africa must be able to feed itself and everybody else.”

Energy transition

Meanwhile, Secretary General for the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO) Dr. Farouk Ibrahim, told the delegates that Africa is committed to energy transition, but such transitions cannot be just if imposed at the expense of the developmental needs of Africa.

Ibrahim has identified access to financing as one of the challenges for transitioning tailored to African energy needs.

“When we pull our resources together we can raise the required finance to sustain the industry in the continent. To do this APPO has gotten into a partnership to fund the Africa energy bank. We are now negotiating. We have reached an advanced stage and we believe by next year at the latest, we should be able to have the bank running, and fully established the Africa energy bank, and will have right from inception 6 billion dollars in its kitty. ”

Delegates say it is unfair of developed countries who shoulder most of the environmental pollution through fossil fueling, to expect Africa to lead in the transition towards cleaner energy. Africa shoulders about 4% of the total global environmental pollution through the use of fossil fuel.

Africa Oil Week Conference is under way in Cape Town:

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