Gwede Mantashe’s quiet race to build a gas-fired rival to Eskom

Largely hidden by the desperate public discourse over the future of Eskom and electricity in South Africa, Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has been patiently building not only a case for supplanting coal with another fossil-fuel, LNG, but has now begun to lay down plans and actual tenders for an entire new cast powered infrastructure. It is all still a bit disjointed but in prospect is a vast new industrial undertaking, with new infrastructure and new rules. Peter Bruce talks to amaBhungane journalist Susan Comrie in this episode of Podcasts from the Edge — she has doggedly and brilliantly stuck with the unfolding gas extravaganza in a series of revealing reports over the past three years. What she reveals is staggering.