editorials WHY IS MANTASHE SHILLING FOR SHELL?
E
ven by his own eccentric standards, mining minister Gwede Mantashe came across as unmoored from reality last week when he sought to paint the opponents of Shell’s blasting along the Wild Coast as aligned to “apartheid and colonialism of a special kind, masquerading as a great interest for environmental protection”. It was a feeble attempt to recast his support for a technology that is increasingly being shunned by those with an eye on the welfare of generations to come as somehow admirable. Instead, it only underscored the extent to which Mantashe is an anachronism, someone who is weighed down by a self-serving ideology and who has overstayed his welcome in the government. Why stop there, Mr Mantashe? By your logic, wouldn’t the architects of COP26’s clean energy agreements also be guilty of “colonialism” by seeking to torpedo investments in coal which otherwise could contribute to the country’s “development”? Is his boss, President Cyril Ramaphosa, aware that in Mantashe’s world, anything goes in the search for money — in contrast to the assurances Ramaphosa gave in Glasgow. Perhaps the funders who agreed to provide R131bn to SA to fund its green energy transition need to reconsider, given Mantashe’s agnosticism on clean energy. As arresting as his statement was, it’s not surprising. Mantashe, after all, has vigorously backed another looming environmental and fiscal catastrophe: the 20-year, R200bn-plus contract to Turkish group Karpowership for the supply of “emergency” power while Eskom gets its act together. That he sees colonialist hobgoblins behind the bid to stop an environmental disaster on the Wild Coast is all the more ironic since it’s hardly a “white fight”. The black fishing communities of Dwesa-Cwebe, Port St Johns and Amadiba have now penned a scathing open letter to Mantashe in which they say the minister “insults us when he implies that the fight to protect our oceans from Editorial
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Editor: Rob Rose. Deputy editor: Natasha Marrian. Managing editor: Kevin O’Grady. Writers: See bylines for writers. Assistant editors: Shirley de Villiers, Razina Munshi, Giulietta Talevi. Contributing editors: Sarah Buitendach, Bruce Whitfield, David Williams.
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December 16 - December 22, 2021
corporations like Shell is only the struggle of white environmentalists … he is trying to make it seem as though we cannot think for ourselves”. Shell’s promised riches are also far from assured. Scientist Liz McDaid, the strategic lead of the Green Connection — a lobby group opposing Shell — points out that the World Bank’s research of 12 Sub-Saharan countries where oil and gas was discovered between 2002 and 2020 found that “government revenues were lower than predicted”, while “resources were overvalued”. Mantashe says there’s no evidence that seismic surveys damage marine life, implying it is a feverish conspiracy created so that activists can keep doing tai chi and yoga on pristine beaches. Yet, this is what a group of actual experts say: “Seismic surveying, which employs large arrays of air guns that produce highamplitude, low-frequency pulses … every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day and for months on end, over extensive areas of ocean, is fundamentally damaging to marine ecosystems.” Their argument — that blasting causes irreparable harm — is the basis for a Randy Poplock second court challenge in Makhanda this week, to stop the survey. What makes Mantashe’s spin more mysterious is that he has not been seized with the need for “development” enough to actually do anything to ensure SA has the power it needs, as he has spurned opportunities to push renewable power. So why, now, is he defending Shell? Could it have something to do with the fact that the Thebe Investment Corp owns 28% of Shell’s downstream refining and marketing business in SA, and that when Thebe was founded back in 1992, it was an ANC investment company? Surely, Mantashe’s impassioned defence of Shell’s commercial ambitions can’t be so venal? x Subeditors: Dave Landau (Chief), Magdel du Preez (Deputy), Dynette du Preez. Proofreader: Norman Baines. Creative director: Debbie van Heerden. Contracted artists: Colleen Wilson, Vuyo Singiswa, Keith Tamkei. Graphics & statistics: Shaun Uthum. Photographer: Freddy Mavunda. Personal PA to the editor: Onica Buthelezi. Office assistant: Nelson Dhlamini.
CAREFUL HOW YOU MEDDLE
T
he Competition Commission’s intervention to ensure the cost of PCR tests is kept to below R500 is welcome. Many countries have intervened to ensure that companies don’t exploit the unusual market circumstances created by Covid to make unreasonable profits. It would also appear to be more justifiable where there are just a few providers of an essential service, like PCR tests. Yet this victory shouldn’t cause the commission to overreach into trying to control prices in areas where it has no place intervening. This would appear to be a real danger, given the commission’s new report, titled “Measuring Concentration and Participation in the SA Economy”. In a document that flags everything from SA’s banks to airlines, the report seeks to justify meddling in industries that aren’t the root of SA’s ills. It seems to be a thinly veiled attempt to impose the state’s barely credible will on the private sector, with zero recognition that the problem is the public sector. What SA needs is a commission that begins to probe how bungling municipalities, and their offshoots like Joburg’s City Power, are able to pass unreasonable increases only thanks to their unfair monopoly. Now that would make a difference. x
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