Hello guv! By the people, for the people? - 9 January 2014

As chief custodian of the resources that belong to the people of South Africa, our government has got to juggle some conflicting responsibilities:

• look after our water (Section 27 of the Constitution);
• look after our environment (Section 24 of the Constitution);
• decide which private companies get to extract the mineral resources that belong to the citizens, and to make sure it happens in a way that benefits the people of the country;
• make sure the country is ‘energy secure’ (we need affordable energy for development, so people can achieve a certain basic standard of living, and so the economy can keep ticking over).