Jacob Mbele, deputy director-general for general programmes and projects at the department of mineral resources & energy, will be the new director-general of the department.
The appointment was made during cabinet’s meeting on Wednesday.
The appointment comes after the former DG, Thabo Mokoena, resigned from his position in March.
Some of the major tasks for the new DG will be to expedite the introduction of a new cadastral system and clearing of the mining rights backlog.
According to the Minerals Council SA, the country’s share of global exploration spending has dropped to below 1% from a peak of 5% in 2003, and it has remained stubbornly below 1% for more than a decade.
Administrative inertia at the department was one of the main reasons for the drop in new investment in the mining sector.
This included the department’s “dysfunctional and outdated” SA Mineral Resources Administration System, which has resulted in a backlog of about 3,500 outstanding mining and prospecting licence of applications.
Mbele is likely to also play an important role in reviewing and updating the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) of 2019.
Mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe and President Cyril Ramaphosa both made an announcement recently that the plan, which provides a road map for future energy planning in country, will be updated.
During the tumultuous delivery of the presidency budget vote in parliament on Thursday, which was disrupted by members of opposition parties, Ramaphosa said that the IRP 2019 would be reviewed “to ensure that it remains relevant in light of the electricity shortfall and our climate change commitments”.
State-owned power utility Eskom suffers from a generation shortfall of between 4,000MW and 6,000MW. The shortfall in generation capacity as well as power outages due to planned or unplanned maintenance on the ageing fleet of coal-fired power stations resulted in Eskom implementing 1,169 hours (13% of the time) of load-shedding.
In its annual publication of power generation statistics for SA that was published this week, the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research said that load-shedding in 2021 overtook 2020 as the most intensive year of load-shedding to date.
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