EDITORIAL: Shell slap puts Gwede on the spot

It’s a big blow for mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe, and a rousing victory for environmental activists. 

Last week’s decision in the high court in Makhanda effectively torpedoed Shell’s plans to conduct seismic blasting along the Wild Coast, when it overturned Mantashe’s decision to award the energy giant an exploration right.

“It is demonstrably clear that the decisions were not preceded by a fair procedure; the decisionmaker failed to take relevant considerations into account and to comply with the relevant legal prescripts,” said judge Selby Mbenenge in the ruling.

The consultation process, he said, had been “woefully lacking”. 

This ruling should be a cause of deep introspection for Mantashe, who went out to bat for Shell so vehemently that at one point he accused opponents of the blasting as being aligned with “apartheid and colonialism of a special kind, masquerading as a great interest for environmental protection”.

Yet, in his haste to approve pet projects (while dreaming up colonialist hobgoblins), Mantashe has been found wanting again.

When will his department begin to realise that maybe the problem lies within its own walls — not at the feet of counter-revolutionary judges?