Taking petroleum projects to court kills investment - Mantashe
Mineral and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has
slammed environmental groups for their role in taking petroleum projects to
court.
Mantashe made the comments during the State of the Nation Debate at the Cape Town City Hall.
The latest remarks by Mantashe follow a court ruling which ordered Shell to suspend seismic blasting along the country’s eastern coast.
Mantashe says this discourages any investment in the country.
“The attempt to take upstream petroleum projects to court all the time is driven by the thing, kill investment through the court system. No investor will want to invest in South Africa if it must go through three, four, five years of the legal system.
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“We are killing the investment, yet we say we want to see investments It is a contradiction. We must deal with that issue. We chased Shell here and they went to Namibia and discovered oil, we chased ENI in KZN they went to Cote de Voire and discovered huge coal deposits and that is what I describe as an island of angels that will starve to death.”
This will not be the first win for environmental groups by halting any mining operations.
Similarly, in Xolobeni situated in the Eastern Cape, the Pretoria High Court ruled in 2018 that mining could not take place without the consent of the community.
