daniel mminele
South Africa is finalizing an implementation plan for an $8.5 billion climate finance deal with some of the world’s richest countries, even as the head of the President’s Climate Finance Task Force resigned, a government spokesman said.
An offer to extend the contract of Daniel Mminele, the team boss, by three months “is on the table,” Vincent Magwenya, a spokesman for president Cyril Ramaphosa, said by text message on Thursday night. Mminele resigned after his contract expired at the end of the year, Business Day previously reported, adding that he was expected to remain in the role.
The deal, the Just Energy Transition Partnership, was announced at the COP27 climate summit in November and is designed to reduce South Africa’s reliance on coal. It is considered a prototype for similar agreements with other coal-dependent developing nations. South Africa concluded the agreement with the US, UK, France, Germany and the European Union.
“We are in constant discussion with partner countries,” Magwenya said. “Remaining contract staff on the President’s Climate Finance Task Force will serve the remainder of the contract period.”
Magwenya said that additional funds have been obtained from donors to support the implementation of the plan. Mminele was deputy governor of the South African central bank and chief executive of a commercial bank.
