Gwede Mantashe
Minister: Mineral Resources & Energy, South Africa
‘We agree with the industry that we need to have a transparent and efficient licensing system that is essential for the industry to grow’
GWEDE Mantashe’s reign as South Africa’s mining minister has been controversial. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy was reconfigured into the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources in 2024, pulling the provision of power from Mantashe’s orbit while leaving mining in his grip. His tenure over mining has been marked by maladministration and incompetence. Massive bottlenecks in the processing of applications for mining and prospecting rights and permits underscore Mantashe’s lack of interest in administration while fuelling perceptions of corruption in provincial offices.
After years of senseless delays that have probably cost South Africa’s mining sector billions of rand in lost investment, Mantashe’s department did finally announce in early 2024 the preferred bidder to craft a functional mining cadastre, an online portal that displays a country’s known mineral wealth and the state of play of mining rights while allowing for applications to be made. That is supposed to be up and running by the middle of 2025 and should bring the logjams to an end. But with Mantashe’s poor track record on the governance front, seeing will be believing.
At least Mantashe is no longer responsible for power provision. Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is the minister of Electricity and Energy and he has brought the rolling blackouts called ‘load-shedding’ — which reached record levels under Mantashe — to an end. Mantashe remains a minister because he is a heavyweight in the ANC, which is now sharing power with several other parties after it lost its parliamentary majority in the 2024 elections.
LIFE OF GWEDE
Thin-skinned and gruff, Mantashe is a former coal miner and trade unionist who cut his teeth with the National Union of Mineworkers during the final decade of apartheid. This laid the foundation for his political rise in the ANC. Formerly the ANC secretary-general, he is currently the chairperson, making him part of the party’s ‘Big Seven’. Mantashe is politically razor-sharp but duller than a butter knife when it comes to administration.
