Minister of minerals & energy Gwede Mantashe is unlikely to expand in any detail on his assertion that NGOs operating in SA and supported by international philanthropies are also funded by the CIA, the American spy agency.
It is hard to elaborate on nonsense, so we should not expect anything beyond what he has already said: that this is all part of the US’s “deliberate programme to block development in a poor country like SA”.
The US has done everything it can to keep SA in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) programme, through which SA exporters enjoy tariff-free access to the US market — including indulging in some pretty rough diplomacy that will have stung Mantashe and others in the cabinet.
The notion that one arm of the US government is trying to undo the work of another makes sense only in a government such as ours. In even suggesting this possibility, Mr Mantashe reveals far more than he realises about his divisive approach and the dearth of unity of purpose in the cabinet on our debilitating energy crisis.
Mantashe is still smarting from the success of NGOs representing local communities in convincing the high court in Makhanda to hand down an interdict to stop a marine seismic survey by Shell and Impact Africa off the Eastern Cape. He knows all too well that it was improper procedure and our own law that stopped the survey, not the CIA. He should know that we know, too.
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