Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resource Gwede Mantashe
SCORE: D
Mantashe’s tenure in the mining and petroleum sectors has been defined by a mix of early reforms and structural challenges. He oversaw the initial rollout of the long-delayed mining cadastral system, which aims to improve transparency, prevent licence overlaps and reduce permit backlogs, but full rollout is only expected by the end of 2026.
He advanced the establishment of the South African National Petroleum Company, consolidating exploration, refining and distribution. However, the liquidity crisis at the embattled PetroSA continues to deepen. Mantashe promoted upstream exploration projects, particularly in the Karoo, and pursued regional fuel agreements to secure supply.
Progress has been slow, and national fuel security remains vulnerable to operational inefficiencies and global price volatility. Long-standing weaknesses continue to hamper both sectors. Mining output has remained largely stagnant for two decades, with minimal exploration, policy uncertainty and weak infrastructure discouraging investment, resulting in major job losses.
This malaise is not helped by his recent utterances at the Mining Indaba that South Africa will block mineral shipments as leverage against US funding cuts. The Stilfontein tragedy underscores the human cost of regulatory failure, poor governance and unsafe practices.
Mantashe has written off his responsibility to tackle the illegal mining crisis, by describing it as a “police matter”. Petroleum supply chains face bottlenecks, limited refining capacity and job losses.