Energy department can’t afford these gaffes

The mistakes related to important work and closely watched strategic decisions coming from the department of mineral resources & energy are simply not good enough.

Minister Gwede Mantashe, who was appointed in February 2018, inadvertently punted a hoax mineral to hundreds of delegates at an investor conference in Australia, and then the incorrect version of the longanticipated Integrated Resource Plan was made public.

The charitable way to look at the department is that it is in flux, with Mantashe overseeing a merger of the minerals department with energy, and that we need to give officials a bit of time to settle and find their feet.

The other view — and the one more likely to be the perception

— is that the department is in a bit of a mess and is struggling to attract skilled and competent officials who can ensure everything put into the public domain is entirely accurate.

More broadly, the government under President Cyril Ramaphosa cannot have a key department stumble over what should be fairly basic matters.

A decent scriptwriter who is fact-checked would have spared Mantashe the need to exhibit good-natured, selfdeprecatory humour on public platforms when explaining away the hazenile mineral embarrassment. Surely someone from the department would have checked the right version of the resources plan was going onto the Government Gazette site accessed by investors, commentators and the media?

Government departments have to send a message of competent administration in the light of Ramaphosa’s quest to attract $100bn of foreign investment, reassure existing investors their money is safe and give lenders assurance that the state knows what it’s doing.

Ramaphosa must read his ministers the riot act to get their departments into gear. Anything else sends entirely the wrong message.