Category: News
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Crying double standard won’t answer the only question that matters — Who funds Rise Mzansi?
This article was first published by The Common Sense A major donation disclosure has placed Rise Mzansi under an uncomfortable spotlight, raising fresh questions about transparency in South African politics. Party leader Songezo Zibi insists there is a straightforward explanation for the R30 million donation, but the identity and public profile of the organisation behind…
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BN Daybreak – Thu 11 June 2026: US-Iran clashes spurn inflation; SA Cops threatened; Spar rallies
Listen here In today’s BizNews Daybreak: Oil spikes after the US military launched retaliatory strikes on Iran, pushing May US inflation to a three-year high of 4.2%. Meanwhile, Oracle shares dipped 6% over cloud capex fears, Bill Gates testified on Capitol Hill regarding Jeffrey Epstein, and SpaceX’s historic IPO drew $250 billion in institutional demand.…
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Legendary OA Ferraris has passed. A giant has fallen.
South African racing has lost one of its true giants. Ormond Ferraris — trainer of some 2600 winners, mentor to legends like Mike de Kock, and a man still arriving at stables before dawn at 93 — passed away peacefully on 10 June 2026, aged 94. A life fully lived in the Sport of Kings.…
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Jonathan Deal – Fight against “disarmament” of citizens as another top cop falls…
Listen here Fears of an agenda to disarm private citizens are growing along with jaw-dropping allegations of criminal activity by top cops. In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Jonathan Deal, the founder of Safe Citizen, warns that the public is not properly and fully informed on public safety, and takes viewers through the implications…
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Yusuf Abramjee – How police general and kingpin plotted to “f… up” anti-crime activist
Listen here A top South African cop, Major General Feroz Khan of Crime Intelligence, and a tobacco kingpin, Mohamed Sayed, plotted to “f….up well known anti-crime activist and Tax Justice SA Founder, Yusuf Abramjee. In this interview with Chris Steyn, Abramjee details a litany of shocking revelations in a 750-page bundle released by the Madlanga…
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Boardroom Talk: Joburg in freefall — who has the will — and the skill — to fix it?
Johannesburg is facing a fiscal reckoning. With a R220 billion infrastructure backlog, soaring debt impairment costs, and local elections on the horizon, BizNews editor Alec Hogg digs into the city’s own budget documents to ask the question no one wants to answer: can any incoming administration actually fix this? By Alec Hogg There’s a document…
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The Daily Edge: Gold at $4,100 and SA is sitting on a fortune it can’t see
Listen here BizNews editor Alec Hogg opens with a thesis from Merrill Lynch veteran Dr. Duarte de Silva: South Africa’s abandoned gold mines and tailings dumps — written off at $300–$800/oz — are generating margins above $3,000 per ounce at today’s prices. The Witwatersrand Basin still holds as much gold as has ever been extracted…
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Rob Rose: The Competition Tribunal is holding South Africa back
Listen here A six-year delay, constitutional criticism, and allegations of misleading the court – Rob Rose’s investigation into South Africa’s Competition Tribunal raises serious questions about accountability and economic governance. In this hard-hitting discussion with Alec Hogg, Rose unpacks how regulatory paralysis, questionable decision-making, and a lack of consequences are undermining business confidence and investment.…
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Richard Wilkinson: What it would actually take to fix City Power and Joburg Water
Johannesburg’s two most critical utilities are haemorrhaging money on a scale that threatens the city’s future. City Power loses nearly a third of the electricity it buys — R4.9 billion in a single year — while owing Eskom R5.2 billion in arrears. Joburg Water loses almost half its water to leaks, theft and billing failures,…
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FT: World’s central banks have spoken — gold is the new safe haven
For the first time, gold has dethroned US Treasuries as the world’s largest reserve asset — and a landmark ECB report shows just how dramatically the global financial order is shifting. With bullion now accounting for 27% of central bank reserves versus Treasuries’ 22%, the metal’s historic rally and relentless buying by China, India, Poland…
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Irish planning giant chemicals plant outside Hopefield – threatening the West Coast’s most fragile ecosystems
This article was first published on PoliticsWeb A little-known Irish conglomerate is quietly moving to build a massive industrial facility three kilometres outside Hopefield, a small West Coast town sitting atop one of South Africa’s most ecologically sensitive landscapes. The Phelan group’s plan is to manufacture so-called Electro-Sustainable Aviation Fuel – a synthetic jet fuel…
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Eskom bets on mines and factories to drive green agenda
This article was first published by Business Day South Africa’s state power utility Eskom has launched Eskom Green, a dedicated renewable energy platform targeting the mining and manufacturing sectors through long-term power purchase agreements. Group CEO Dan Marokane says the initiative, benchmarked against 20 international utilities, builds on Eskom’s decades of generation expertise. With an…
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Foreign hands or a failing government? Why Lamola’s protest conspiracy theory doesn’t hold up
South Africa’s anti-immigrant protests have a new villain, according to Minister Ronald Lamola: foreign powers unhappy with Pretoria’s ICJ case against Israel. Political scientist Kenneth Moeng Kgwadi isn’t convinced. In this sharp opinion piece, he draws a damning parallel between Lamola’s insinuations and a well-documented global playbook — from Putin blaming Hillary Clinton for Moscow’s…
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BN Daybreak – Wed 10 June 2026: US strikes Iran; SpaceX demand; Joburg budget woes; SA Competition Court backlog
Listen here In this episode of BizNews Daybreak, US forces strike Iran after a helicopter downing, SpaceX’s IPO sees massive demand, and IBM bets billions on quantum computing. In South Africa, the Competition Appeal Court slams egregious six-year delays crippling corporate deals, while Johannesburg’s bleak budget exposes critical cash shortages and severe utility infrastructure backlogs.…
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Jemmy Button and the lost Yaghan: A tragic encounter in Tierra del Fuego
By Peter Dearlove Four young people were taken from their tribe in the remote land of Tierra del Fuego as ransom for a stolen boat in 1830, yet they were treated like celebrities and introduced to the British King and Queen in London. When they were taken home it seemed they had everything they needed…
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Local drugmakers sound alarm: Import policies gutting SA medicine manufacturing base
Local pharmaceutical manufacturers in South Africa, represented by Pharmaceuticals Made in SA, are warning that government procurement policies are increasingly favouring imported medicines over local production. They argue that this shift, driven by large state tenders such as HIV/AIDS drugs, vaccines and solid-dose medicines, is reducing local manufacturers’ market share, threatening jobs and weakening national…
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SA’s middle class in crosshairs—DBE moves to ban screening at Model C schools
This article was first published by The Common Sense. In a country where public education consistently ranks near the bottom of global assessments, the Department of Basic Education has chosen to target the system’s few functioning islands of excellence. As The Common Sense reports, a new parliamentary proposal would strip former Model C schools of…
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Steenhuisen was warned—repeatedly. South Africa’s FMD disaster is his to own.
This is a damning piece of accountability journalism. South Africa’s foot-and-mouth disease crisis was not an unforeseeable catastrophe — it was a failure foretold, in letters, meetings, technical notes and court papers, by farmers, veterinarians, industry bodies and an independent economist. Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen chose the plan, centralised the plan, and defended it even…
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Rob Hersov’s Cabinet of Extraordinary People
Rob Hersov has never been shy about what he thinks of South Africa’s political class, and this piece is vintage Hersov — provocative, pointed and packed with names, with quite a few BNC#9 speakers among them. Taking Cyril Ramaphosa’s bloated 32-portfolio Cabinet as his foil, the businessman proposes a leaner 20-ministry structure built around competence…
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Solly Moeng: Vote out “all these mad men and women in politics”…
Listen here In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, political commentator Solly Moeng comments on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s poor handling of the immigration (and other) crisis; the mysterious social media campaign to position Freedom Front Plus Minister of Correctional Services Pieter Groenewald as a future president; questions about the R30 million “donation” to Rise Mzansi,…