Rob Hersov’s foot is on the gas, Johann Rupert’s is on our necks

By: Gayton McKenzie

It was courageous of my good friend Rob Hersov to start off 2023 with a “come-at-me” challenge to the greenies and anti-fracking lobby groups, and I stand with him.

Quite simply, not only must fracking happen in the Karoo, it should have started 10 years ago already.

We have lost so much time and wasted a gift and an opportunity to create jobs and new industries, sustain our existing industries, convert our coal power stations to gas and, in short, live in a more sustainable South Africa.

I am the mayor of the Central Karoo, and fracking can happen, and it MUST happen. We already have boreholes that have reached the gas, and can be converted into successful operations rapidly. We know the gas is there. We know we have safe, proven methods of extracting it.

We have passed a council resolution to do everything in our power to support and promote fracking, because to fail to do so would be irresponsible in the extreme, and morally unconscionable.

I am not a mayor who takes his instructions from funders. I take my lead from bad circumstances that need to be transformed to good.

Lawyers like Derek Light are lying to us. They are using scare tactics that have long been discredited. In any case, to argue that things like wind farms have no negative impact on the environment and that renewable technology is the only solution to our energy crisis is simply childishly naïve at best, and cynically deceptive at worst.

Building batteries for power storage comes at a huge cost to the environment, just to point out an obvious issue you don’t hear the green lobbyists talk about too much.

To be told that we must continue to be poor and just hope for the best when we are sitting on potentially one of the world’s largest shale gas reserves is something that might make sense for a billionaire like Johann Rupert, who, together with another famous old rich family, was estimated in 2014 to have as much money as the poorest 50% of people in South Africa combined.

Maybe it’s okay for Rupert to sit on his hands and say: “To hell with all of you, I just don’t like this fracking idea.”

But we know in the real world where most people have to worry about where their child’s next meal is coming from, it’s not so easy.

And when the terrorists take over Mozambique and it gets even harder to access natural gas in South Africa, then even more people will start to wonder why we allowed people to prioritise totally pointless concerns about the welfare of scorpions in the Karoo over long-term plans to make South Africa truly great.

Energy is one of the most important factors in our lives that all children have to learn about at school. Energy is defined as the ability to do work. It is power.

Power=work/time. Just ask Eskom how we have lost our power as a nation because we have not done the work, and we are way behind schedule on time.

There is no more time to waste. We need to start fracking yesterday already.

Rob Hersov, unlike Johann Rupert, understands that it’s not enough to just come from a wealthy family and to continue to just make more money for yourself. Rob Hersov understands that we all need a place in the sun.

And despite his name, lawyers like Derek Light are determined to keep the rest of us in the dark.

Fracking will happen. The time is now for the people of the Karoo to also become rich. We can’t be told by the rich what is good for us.

*Gayton McKenzie is the President of the Patriotic Alliance (PA)