"Huge water risk'' to fracking
The Treasure Karoo Action Group believes the exploration and exploitation of shale gas will pose a significant risk to water resources in the Karoo and the drought-stricken Cape.
Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe said during his department's budget vote on Tuesday that the government will fast-track the finalisation of exploration rights in the southern Karoo Basin.
"We can't understand why somebody could pursue a technology that would use vast quantities of fresh water and meanwhile place other vast quantities of very valuable underground water at risk.
"In a time when most South Africans that are alive today are experiencing the worst drought that they can ever remember and with no end to the drought in sight, especially in the Cape and Karoo," says the action group's CEO Jonathan Deal.
Deal says the group's resistance to shale gas mining has not changed.
"I think that our position remains the same since 2011. It is a very polluting and destructive technology, it is extremely water thirsty.
"I would like to invite the public to really become informed about this kind of thing and stand up like we have seen them stand up to the failed e-tolls debacle."
The department, meanwhile, says it will also publish a notice to invite comments from the public.