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Companies in South Africa’s global business services (GBS) sector are enhancing their offerings to global clients so that their call centres and recruits will have an edge against the onslaught of AI.

Kyle Goete, director of Human Xperience, told Business Times that the clients’ needs being channeled towards South Africa’s professionals were complex.

“They [clients overseas] desire something more than transactional calls, and I think that’s driving our cost up because they want something better, and they’re here in South Africa to get something better. We’re moving out of the basic easy calls into work not only because of natural progression in IT but also because of AI.

“All of the mundane, monotonous, repetitive tasks are going to be taken by the AI tools that are there, not to take jobs but to make things more efficient so they can deal with more calls and be more complex in their work environment.”

According to the UiPath 2026 AI and Agentic Automation Trends Report, practitioners are successfully applying multi-agent systems to their complex, hard-to-automate processes, including inquiry triage, resolution drafting, compliance, and tone review.

Key drivers of the adoption of AI in these sectors at a global level include the high cost of human labour, demand for faster response times, and the need to scale up capacity without raising headcount.

Human Xperience is a global GBS assisting international companies with their business process outsourcing (BPO) needs. One of its partners, Everlight Radiology, specialises in connecting radiologists based in South Africa and finding radiologists for the world’s needs at flexible hours.

This presents opportunities to utilise South Africa-based radiology expertise for an incident in Australia outside of Australia’s working hours.

City of Cape Town MMC for economic growth, James Vos, said the city regarded the BPO sector as a high-growth sector that created skills pipelines in the order of sectors like clothing, financial services, pharmaceuticals and ICT. “This is a sector very close to our hearts. The BPO sector now nearly employs 100,000 people in Cape Town, both domestic and international, and it’s a sector that contributes about R24bn every year to the Western Cape economy.”

Vos gave his support to the BPO sector to ensure it is responsive to the challenges and opportunities that AI presents to their businesses and their recruits. “AI is going to take over these calls, right? And that’s what we don’t want. We’d rather work with AI to strengthen the value proposition, but you still need a warm body to take that call or make that call that shows compassion and care to solve people’s problems right here from the southern tip of this continent.”

Elvira Riccardi, Afrizan founder and CEO, said the business recently launched its Cape Town BPO call centre to enhance its customer-care offering domestically before branching off to prospective clients in the UK. “We don’t intend to be a 10,000-seater. We are looking to build bespoke niche products that will partner with AI. AI is a fundamental part of everyone’s journey. We would be silly to exclude that. We’ve developed a programme or philosophy.”

According to the Business Process Enabling SA (BPESA) GBS Sector Report for the third quarter of 2025, frontline, voice-based contact centre agents employed in the sector during October to December 2025 accounted for 84% of new hires or 5,579 jobs.

“These voice jobs were reported as falling within inbound customer services [at] 72.65% or 4,053 new jobs, inbound sales [at] 15.79% or 881, outbound customer services [at] 10.24% or 571, and outbound sales [at] 1.32% or 74 new jobs.”

Back office and non-voice services accounted for about 16% of recruits, or 1,064 jobs, between October and December 2025, with back office processing at 55.47% or 590 jobs, finance and accounting at 33% or 351 jobs, and human resource management at 4.51% or 48 jobs. “There was also further growth in online tutoring [at] 3.57% or 38 new jobs, digital and information technology outsourcing [at] 3.35% or 36 new jobs, and procurement services [at] 0.10% or 1 new job.”

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Listed companies and state-owned entities are now required to disclose the pay gap between the highest and lowest paid employees as part of changes to section 30A and 30B of the Companies Act that were signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in May.

The amendments, intended as a way of addressing income inequality, shift pay gap disclosure from voluntary to mandatory. Companies are now required to table annual remuneration reports in line with fair pay principles. The reports require the approval of 50%+1 of shareholders at an AGM — down from 75% previously — and are valid for three years.

The wage disclosures will include, among other things, the total remuneration of the highest-paid employee, the remuneration of the lowest-paid employee, the average total remuneration of all employees, the median wage and the ratio between the total pay of the top 5% and bottom 5% of earners.

The voluntary governance principles found in the King Code needed legislative support to bring about any real change in the South African commercial landscape

Phillip Kruger

There have been concerns about rising inequality in South Africa and the amendments seek to align the economy more closely with international standards such as those applied in the EU and the UK, where binding or semi-binding remuneration frameworks are in place.

Phillip Kruger, a director in the legal department of RSM South Africa, an assurance, tax and business consultancy, told Business Times that the changes pave the way for pay transparency.

“The amendments bring about a dispensation where transparency, accountability and fair remuneration practices are paramount... to ensure the entities meet their legislative compliance requirements,” he said.

Kruger said the disclosure of executive remuneration had been regulated by section 30 of the Companies Act, which confined the disclosure to an aggregated basis, as opposed to on an individual executive level.

Voluntary disclosures were required under King IV in 2017, he said, but statutory intervention was deemed to be necessary to effectively address the often-excessive pay gaps between executives and workers.

“In essence, the voluntary governance principles found in the King Code needed legislative support to bring about any real change in the South African commercial landscape,“ Kruger said.

“Typically, historic reporting may have provided compliant disclosures in respect of the previous iteration of section 30, [but] such disclosures could still be challenging to interpret, vague and not standardised in accordance with international best practices.”

Leila Ebrahimi and Makhosazana Mabaso, remuneration specialists at PwC, said in a joint comment on the amendments that they made it possible for a “universal floor”, meaning firms will now produce comparable data points.

“There is a risk that the disclosure generates noise rather than insight if it is not accompanied by meaningful narrative context. The legislation creates the obligation to disclose; it does not, on its own, create the understanding that makes disclosure useful. That is the work that companies will need to do themselves,” said Ebrahimi and Mabaso.

Whether this translated into real change depended entirely on how companies responded to it.

“If it is treated as a compliance exercise, producing the numbers without engaging with what they reveal or performing any deeper analysis beyond the surface level requirements of the act, the disclosure will inform but it will fall short of being transformative in the way that many are hoping for,” they said.

They said the amendments will help companies that use them to genuinely understand income distribution and to develop pay policies to mirror their values.

Nicole Martens, executive director of the NPO Just Share, said binding votes on remuneration policy and implementation are an important and overdue step towards addressing persistent concerns about excessive pay and weak alignment with performance.

Martens however said, the proposal to raise the shareholder dissent threshold from 25% to 50% risks weakening accountability in practice.

“Even at 25%, shareholder opposition has often struggled to drive meaningful change. A higher threshold sets the bar so high that it may blunt shareholder voice, particularly in a market with concentrated ownership and wide wage gaps. Simplification should not come at the expense of one of the few mechanisms that gives shareholders real leverage on executive pay,“ she said.

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South Africa lacks the kind of comprehensive growth strategy that its peers have implemented to boost their economies, Ravi Bhatia, director and lead analyst at S&P Global Ratings, said this week.

Speaking at a financial conference on navigating global shocks in Johannesburg, Bhatia said: “We have seen that in other countries that we go to, where they have a growth plan, and they look at unicorn companies in their economies and how to push them forward. In South Africa, it has been more about ‘fix it’, with Eskom and Transnet, and not really a comprehensive strategy for growth, and a lot of missed opportunities as well.”

He said the missed opportunities included the chance to sell more minerals during the commodity price boom.

After years of constraints in the rail and energy sectors, the government introduced structural reforms that have paved the way for third-party players on Transnet’s freight rail network, while Eskom has been unbundled into distribution, transmission and generation units to improve power generation.

S&P Global Ratings on May 29 retained South Africa’s long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating at BB and its local currency rating at BB+. It kept the outlook at positive. In November last year, the agency upgraded South Africa’s credit rating for the first time in 16 years after the third year of primary surpluses and as the Operation Vulindlela reform programme gained momentum.

It said GDP growth will likely be 1.2% in 2026 and average 1.7% over 2027-2029, amid reforms to electricity and other sectors to support growth.

Bhatia said South Africa was an “outlier” in terms of its sluggish economy. “What is striking about South Africa compared to peers is how little it grows,” he said.

What is striking about South Africa compared to peers is how little it grows

Ravi Bhatia

The South African Reserve Bank last week resumed its tightening of monetary policy, hiking rates 25 basis points to 7% as producer price inflation soared in April to 4.8% from 2.3% the previous month due to the conflict in the Gulf and the strangling of oil supplies.

Bhatia warned that consumers should brace themselves for further pain from the effects of the war, but S&P was happy to see that the Bank had acted quickly.

“Basically South Africa is a consumer-led economy. We are going to see high interest rates. It is going to dampen consumer demand slightly, that is affecting our growth story,” he said.

Also speaking at the conference, economist Iraj Abedian, CEO of Pan African Investment & Research, said the regulatory environment impeded economic growth, and municipalities had become the largest and most visible obstacles to growth.

“They are racking up debt, they are racking up debt to Eskom. They are not paying for their rental offices.” He criticised the National Treasury for not intervening to arrest the paralysis in municipalities.

In a presentation on municipalities, Danelee Masia, chief economist at Deutsche Bank, said she was encouraged by the Treasury’s municipal debt relief programme, which requires struggling municipalities to pay bills consistently or sign agreements allowing Eskom to take over revenue collection.

“Currently it is a hotchpotch of collections and no checks and balances in place. Converting municipalities into some kind of trading systems where you can lose your licence, I think that is exciting, it is going to be interesting to see how we implement it. This is going to be an interesting one,” she said.

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Absa shareholders raised concerns about the bank’s financing of TotalEnergies’s $20bn (R325bn) liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Mozambique and nearly half snubbed the bank’s remuneration implementation report at its AGM this week.

The project in Cabo Delgado, which resumed in January after a five-year stoppage due to an Islamic insurgency, has been tarnished by allegations of human rights violations arising from efforts to quell the insurgency.

Lars von Danwitz, a senior sustainability analyst at ÖKOWORLD Lux SA with about €2.5bn (R47bn) in assets under management, said with construction resuming in 2026, ÖKOWORLD was worried about the bank’s continued involvement in the project.

“We have yet to see sufficient evidence that the bank independently monitors these specific risks or reconciles its ongoing involvement with the Equator Principles,” he said.

Lead independent director Nonhlanhla Mjoli-Mncube said the bank was aware of the reports. “Absa’s strategy has been very clear that we do want to balance both the environment and the social as a pan-African bank. It is important that when we look at each project, we balance the two,” she said. Mjoli-Mncube said the bank conducted due diligence, including human rights issues, when making any investment decision.

For us, paying a full year [salary] for only six months of service is not justifiable

Lars von Danwitz

Absa CEO Kenny Fihla said Absa strived for covenants on governance and human rights that reflected its values. “We acknowledge that there is a limit to the extent to which we can go beyond our role as a bank and force government and other entities to behave in a particular manner,” he said.

Von Danwitz also sought clarity on the pay structure. Fihla, who joined the group in June 2025 from Standard Bank, received R148m in financial 2025. His remuneration included short-term incentives (STI) based on the group’s performance, and a share-based buyout to compensate for his loss of unvested deferred awards after resigning from Standard Bank.

Only 56.63% of shareholders voted in favour of the non-binding advisory vote on implementation of the remuneration report.

“Paying a full-year short-term incentive for only six months of service violates the principle of pro-rata remuneration and effectively rewards the executive for time not spent at the firm. We believe the remuneration committee’s justification for this payout is insufficient and undermines the necessary alignment between executive performance and pay,” he said.

But the bank said its policy was in line with standard industry practice.

Rose Keanly, chair of the remuneration committee, said that when an executive joins a new organisation, they should be in the same position that they would have been if they had stayed in their previous post.

She said when it came to the 2025 STIs, the choice was between adding a six-month STI to the buyout for Fihla or a full-year Absa STI, on the basis that he had led the organisation to achieve its financial targets and market guidance.

“We chose the latter; we thought it was better aligned to the interest of the organisation and shareholders. What I can confirm is there was no financial advantage to the CEO and there was no additional cost to Absa as a consequence,” she said.

Absa reported better financial results in 2025 compared with a year earlier, including a 12% increase in headline earnings to R24.bn and an 8% jump in NAV to R172bn. This resulted in a 15% return on equity from 14.8% a year earlier.

Based on the rise in headline earnings, the remuneration committee sanctioned a R4.14bn STI pool.

But after the advisory vote on the remuneration report, which failed to reach the approval level of 75%, Absa said it would consult with dissenting shareholders. “As a result of there being more than 25% of the votes exercised against the non-binding vote ... shareholders will be invited to raise their concerns or recommendations on the remuneration implementation report,” it said.

In terms of sustainability, Fihla said Absa was assessing the availability of data to help set realistic emissions targets. “A lot of what we are doing today is dependent on the availability of data, the disclosure of the companies and our ability to ensure that the information can be audited,” he said.

Mjoli-Mncube said: “The quality of the data we need is important. Scope 3 emissions are largely dependent on the availability and quality of data, which is outside of Absa’s control, but it is something we’re working on and is something we continue to monitor.”

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Fairvest is deepening its focus on community retail centres after reporting double-digit distribution growth and strong leasing performance, while continuing to expand its township fibre investment strategy.

The JSE-listed real estate investment trust (Reit) reported interim results, with distribution per B share rising 12.3% to 25.94c, while A share distributions increased to 71.82c. Like-for-like net property income also grew 8% year-on-year.

“We’ve got a very solid underpin of retail assets, with 70% of our income derived from retail,” Fairvest CEO Darren Wilder said.

“If you look at the key metrics that we’re achieving on the retail business unit, it’s incredibly strong. That’s really delivering the core component of the results.”

That retail strength was reflected in operational momentum across the portfolio, with like-for-like net property income supported by 240 new deals and 210 renewals over the period.

Rental conditions also continued to improve, with reversions rising from 4.8% to 5.7%, while lease escalations held steady at 6.7% and portfolio weighted average lease expiry (Wale) at 29.4 months.

Vacancies edged up from 4.1% to 5.1% but remained low overall, with tenant retention at 83.8%. Retail leasing drove activity, with 147 new leases across 27,017m², while office assets achieved higher pricing on new deals and industrial properties recorded rental reversions of 8.4%.

Expenses rose 6.3% over the period, largely due to portfolio expansion, reflecting continued operational discipline.

“The group’s portfolio continues to demonstrate resilient operating performance, supported by low vacancies, disciplined asset management and stable rental growth,” said Wilder.

During the period, Fairvest disposed of a commercial property in Goodwood, Western Cape, for R65m while progressing the acquisition of the Jozini Mall and Tugela Ferry Mall in KwaZulu-Natal for R700.4m.

The group said these moves align with its strategy of recycling capital from non-core assets into rural and non-metropolitan retail centres close to commuter nodes and transport links. Total capital expenditure for the period was R126.9m, including R18.4m invested in solar initiatives.

Wilder said Fairvest has long targeted underserved retail markets, typically focusing on assets below 25,000m² that sit outside the appetite of both private investors and large funds.

“In property you make your money when you buy the asset, so we buy well, and that gives you your long-term growth,” he said.

Beyond its property portfolio, Fairvest continues to scale its investment in Onepath, its township fibre infrastructure business.

The infrastructure is leased to a network operator providing connectivity in township communities, generating an increasingly meaningful dividend stream, which rose to R37.8m from R3m a year earlier.

“Globally, we see the fibre business underpinning large Reits across the world. A digital fibre business is not linked to any economic cycle at all. People buy fibre because they want to be connected,” Wilder said, adding that this stability makes it an attractive long-term investment for Fairvest.

During the period, Onepath invested a further R667.4m into fibre networks, taking total investment to R1.2bn. The infrastructure is aimed at improving connectivity in communities surrounding the group’s shopping centres while also supporting local economic activity and strengthening long-term retail demand.

Wilder said that while retail property remains the core growth engine of the business, Fairvest will continue to scale its Onepath investment.

After the period end, Fairvest raised R900m through a book build, which will be used to partly fund the acquisition of the Muller Group malls, support further investment in Onepath, and reduce debt ahead of pending asset transfers.

The group also maintained a conservative balance sheet, with a loan-to-value ratio of 26.6%, supported by strong liquidity and nearly R927m in cash and undrawn facilities, providing flexibility for future growth and acquisitions.

“While the macroeconomic environment has become more uncertain, solid property fundamentals, combined with conservative balance sheet management, position the group for sustained growth,” Wilder said, noting the group’s resilient operational performance.

Looking ahead, Fairvest expects distributable earnings per B share to grow 11% to 13% in the 2026 financial year, to between 53.4c and 54.4c, while A share distributions will rise by the lesser of 5% or CPI.

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Standard Bank is aiming to be the largest bank in East Africa by 2030, a region that’s home to 400-million people, with the lender hoping to double its earnings in the fastest growing region on the continent.

The “Big Blue”, as Standard Bank is known in high finance circles due to the size of its balance sheet, is not content with being the third largest bank in the region — a position that belies its status as Africa’s largest bank by assets.

Joshua Oigara, the regional CEO for Standard Bank East Africa — a portfolio that encompasses six key markets in the region: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Malawi — said the lender was poised for growth.

He said Standard Bank has set a target of doubling its client base in East Africa to 2-million by 2030, and alongside it, doubling its earnings in the key corridor.

In the 2025 financial year, the region accounted for R4.7bn of the group’s record-breaking R49.2bn earnings. “We have an opportunity to build our businesses organically every year. Today we play as a top three bank in the region,” Oigara said.

“If you think about 2030, we should be doubling our earnings. If you think about Kenya, which is growing at 5-6% [GDP], Uganda at 6-7%, and Tanzania at 7-8%, there is a huge opportunity for us to make Standard Bank the largest bank in the region in the next three to four years.”

To achieve its ambition, the bank, armed with R3.6-trillion in assets, will have to do heavy lifting in Kenya, where it occupies the number six market position in the metrics of total assets, deposits and profit after tax.

Kenya is East Africa’s largest economy by a mile. The 163-year-old Standard Bank has had a presence in Kenya since 1992 and has grown to 44 branches, servicing 315,000 clients in the country.

Kenya has been perceived as a regional leader in Africa in terms of development, having achieved above-average growth rates to become a lower middle-income economy in 2014 [World Bank classification]. However, the country continues to face important economic challenges, with two thirds of the population living on less than $3.20 per day, with the majority of the workforce still employed in the agriculture sector.

Standard Bank’s domestic rivals have also eyed East Africa for growth, with the region having favourable demographics, with an average age of 20 and high fintech adoption.

Absa recently concluded the purchase of Standard Chartered Uganda’s wealth and retail banking business, a deal set to strengthen Absa’s retail franchise, expand its affluent and high-net-worth customer base, and deepen its wealth management capabilities.

Standard Bank holds a dominant position in Uganda.

Nedbank is in the process of acquiring a majority stake in Kenya-based NCBA for nearly R14bn. NCBA operates across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, and offers digital banking services in Ghana and Ivory Coast, serving about 60-million clients.

Standard Bank is said to have been in hot pursuit of NCBA too, according to Bloomberg.

Standard Bank Group CEO Sim Tshabalala told a Kenya-South Africa Business Forum on Thursday, and graced by President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Kenyan counterpart William Ruto, that there are opportunities to deepen economic ties between the two countries.

“We find Kenya’s rapid, sustained, and increasingly diversified growth extremely impressive. We are equally impressed by Kenya’s close and highly efficient links to the European, Indian, and Chinese economies and to the broader global trading system in general,” he said.

“Over the past three decades, we have worked with many Kenyan clients and partners. It is no secret that we intend to keep growing our business and our contribution in your great country, Mr President [Ruto].”

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Having seemingly lost the battle to keep the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) and its grid assets within Eskom after pressure from lenders and business, the power utility has turned its focus to stitching together a sound financial plan for separation acceptable to key stakeholders.

Business Times can today report that Eskom is looking to hire consultants to assess the funding implications and credit considerations the move to separate the NTSCA will have on the group — which is expected to shell out more than R300bn in capital expenditure by 2030.

The move to do a deep-dive financial impact assessment comes four months after President Cyril Ramaphosa discarded the utility’s revised unbundling strategy that would have seen it establish a fully independent transmission system operator while retaining transmission assets within the company.

The plan, which was approved by the minister of electricity & energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, failed to find favour with the president after an uproar led by the business community.

Instead, the president established a dedicated presidential task team to oversee the process. There are concerns among some in Eskom’s corridors that the establishment of the independent transmission system operator (TSO), which will own the NTCSA assets, will undermine the financial viability of Eskom.

The NTCSA has a mammoth, capital-intensive task of building 14,000km of new high-voltage transmission lines over the next decade to accommodate new renewable generation and stabilise the national grid — at a cost estimated in the region of R440bn.

Eskom, in its market-sounding exercise, said the consultants’ work will focus on supporting Eskom’s treasury department in assessing and managing the funding and credit-related implications arising from the NTCSA transaction.

“Eskom is progressing the separation of the NTCSA, which will have an impact on the group’s funding structure, debt profile and lender arrangements. The transaction requires detailed assessment of funding implications, lender engagement and credit considerations,” the group said in its request for proposal.

“The adviser will assist in evaluating funding structures, analysing debt and liquidity impacts, engaging with lenders and other capital providers, assessing credit rating implications and developing appropriate financial models and valuation analyses strictly for the purposes of informing funding decisions, debt capacity and credit risk management.

“The advisory services will be undertaken in support of treasury’s mandate to optimise funding, manage financial market risks and maintain effective engagement with lenders, investors and rating agencies.”

Ramaphosa set the ball rolling in 2019 in a bid to break Eskom’s historical monopoly and usher South Africa into a competitive multimarket electricity system aligned with global best practice.

Key to this is the unbundling of Eskom into three distinct units: distribution, generation and transmission.

The discarded revised unbundling plan by Eskom, which would have retained the grid assets under its control, was seen by critics as a means for the company to maintain its long-standing monopoly on the energy sector.

Fitch said it had forecast a cumulative capex of R322bn by Eskom between the 2026 financial year and the 2030 financial year

Business Unity South Africa (Busa) and Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) earlier this year wrote to Ramaphosa urging him to reject Eskom’s revised strategy — arguing that without owning grid assets, the TSO lacks balance-sheet capacity to raise financing for the R440bn transmission expansion needed to connect new renewable generation and support economic growth.

The TSO, under the 2019 plan, which Ramaphosa re-affirmed in February, will own and expand the national transmission grid and operate the national electricity market.

The TSO is also expected to guarantee non-discriminatory access for all electricity generators — a central condition for genuine competition.

In April 2024, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) gave the green light for Eskom to transfer its control over independent power producers to the newly established NTCSA, which duly began trading both Eskom and privately generated electricity in July 2024.

Fitch said it had forecast a cumulative capex of R322bn by Eskom between the 2026 financial year and the 2030 financial year. The rating agency said almost 42% of capex would be directed to transmission, 40% to generation, and the rest to distribution.

“The capex is required to achieve the targets set under the 2025 integrated resource plan by expanding the grid, improving flexibility and accelerating renewable energy deployment,” Fitch said.

The establishment of an independent TSO remains a key milestone in South Africa’s transition to a fully competitive electricity market by 2030 under the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act of 2024.

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Chinese carmakers are rapidly gaining global market share as overproduction drives an aggressive export push into key regions.

While China is the world’s largest auto market, an oversupply of vehicles is pushing manufacturers to expand beyond their domestic base, sending a wave of competitively priced cars into markets such as Europe, the UK and South Africa. The result has been rising market share for Chinese brands and intensifying competition for established automakers.

In South Africa, Chinese brands now account for more than 20% of vehicle sales. In the UK, their presence has climbed to about 15%. In Germany, however, their market share remains “much lower”, according to BMW board member for customers, brands and sales, Jochen Goller.

The influx is reshaping the competitive landscape, particularly in the entry-level and mid-range segments. Chinese vehicles often come equipped with advanced technology and are priced below comparable models from established manufacturers. This has forced traditional players to defend their market share while adapting to a faster-moving and more competitive environment.

We are seeing a sharp increase in the market share of Chinese brands

BMW's Jochen Goller

“There is significant overproduction, so many of those cars are no longer sold in China but are instead being exported to other regions. As a result, we are seeing a sharp increase in the market share of Chinese brands,” Goller said in an interview.

Locally, some premium brands like BMW have so far held their ground, largely because Chinese competitors remain concentrated in more price-sensitive segments. Goller said BMW “is in a very strong position” given its focus on premium vehicles and its broad range of cars.

“We are growing in South Africa. In the first five months of this year, we delivered a very strong performance despite increased competition.”

He added that BMW is one of the few global automakers with a strong presence across major regions, including Europe, China and the US. “This allows us to balance performance — if there are challenges in one region, they can be offset by strength in others,” he said.

Equally important is the group’s integrated ecosystem, spanning dealerships, after-sales service, financing and resale value. “Take South Africa, for example. When customers buy a BMW, they know what the vehicle will be worth in three years’ time. They know parts are available and that they will receive support throughout the ownership journey. That is not easily replicated by a new entrant — and it is why we are resilient.”

According to vehicle industry body Naamsa, new vehicle sales in May reached 51,071 units, driven largely by light passenger cars. Export volumes declined to 29,392 units, down 4.8% year-on-year.

On electric vehicles (EVs), Goller said the global transition was well underway, but adoption rates differed significantly by region.

“The trend is clearly moving towards full electrification, but the pace of adoption varies widely across markets,” he said.

China is far ahead, with more than half of new vehicle sales consisting of fully electric or hybrid models. Europe trails at around 18%, while the Americas lag at roughly 6%. Within Europe, the disparity is stark: in Norway, nearly 90% of new vehicle sales are electric, compared with about 10% in Poland.

Given these differences, BMW will continue to offer a mix of internal combustion engine vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fully electric models.

While Chinese brands are often associated with their strength in EVs, their global expansion is not being driven solely by electrification.

“Many assume that Chinese cars exported overseas are predominantly electric; that’s not the case,” Goller said. “Most are still plug-in hybrids or internal combustion engine vehicles.”

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As Transnet prepares for increased private sector participation in port and rail operations, management at the utility is focused on getting the government to formulate standards for entering participants so that they can work at the highest standards.

Jabu Mdaki, chief executive of Transnet Port Terminals, told Business Times this week that as the port logistics reforms announced by the government gather pace, Transnet is working to ensure that it is not outflanked by private sector participants due to its obligations as a parastatal.

“The critical thing for us when we talk about this reform [is that] we believe there is still scope to review the procurement policies, because there is a lot of work that has been done — I must acknowledge that — but we can do more,” he said.

“Because now, especially when there is competition that is entering [the sector], TNPA [Transnet National Ports Authority], as the authority, is issuing a lot of section 56 licences, where you have a lot of competitors that are coming in, and those competitors are not going to be hampered by the procurement policies that we’ve got — and we believe that they should be.”

Mdaki spoke to Business Times on the sidelines of this week’s launch of the infrastructure expansion at Transnet’s Saldanha Terminal. This expansion is the result of an investment of over R4bn to replace ageing equipment and infrastructure and increase export capacity.

It includes a new tippler extension, a new Eskom substation, a 1.7km conveyor system, heavy-haul rail infrastructure, road bridges, conveyor tunnels, gantry cranes, dust management systems, high-mast lighting, fibre-optic and control system integration, and associated power infrastructure.

Mdaki said TPT is of the view that private sector participants are not currently hampered by the same standard of procurement guidelines that the Transnet Group and its subsidiaries are subjected to as state-owned entities.

“We are expected to compete with them, to match or beat their performance,” he said. “[But] they don’t have the same standards [imposed on them]. So, that, for me, is one of the areas where there is still an opportunity for the reform to move us forward.”

Licences under section 56 of the National Ports Act empower TNPA to appoint suppliers as preferred bidders for terminal operations, such as the authority’s appointment of FFS Tank Terminals as a preferred bidder to refurbish the Port of Cape Town.

Also at the Saldanha tippler 3 launch, Transnet Group COO Solly Letsoalo said that facilities such as the Saldanha Terminal not operating at full potential present a challenge for Transnet to generate the capacity to allow deeper private sector participation.

“Those processes are complex,” he said. “If I just restrict myself to this iron ore [operation], you have a finite capacity that is being utilised. Now you want to add more people. You need to add capacity for you to have additional slots for other players to play.”

Letsoalo said Transnet remains in charge of the infrastructure, where the capacity constraint lies. Other lines like the container lines remain heavily utilised, and many train operators could potentially operate there, he added.

“You have to solve the capacity through the infrastructure being upgraded; then you make space for the private sector to add more rolling stock [and] to move product,” he said. “But that’s just specifically for iron ore. In other areas the demand is high, and the capacity is there. Once you’ve stored it, there are more slots for people to move different kinds of goods.”

Letsoalo said Transnet continues to work closely with the government and the department of transport‘s private sector participation unit to drive reforms in the logistics space. He said the state-owned entity continues to be a participant in this process alongside the government and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Speaking at a Tuesday dinner hosted by Exporters Western Cape and Nedbank, transport minister Barbara Creecy said the government would be updating the Transnet network statement.

“In the next two weeks, we will issue the second version of the network statement,” Creecy said. “That is going to give the new price for which operators can carry different goods, including Transnet itself.

“What is also important about the network statement is that it is designed to give certainty to new freight operators that they can borrow the finances they need to equip themselves with the freight and rolling stock they need to enter into operations.”

On logistics reforms, Creecy said the national rail policy and the freight logistics strategy were adopted by the cabinet in 2022 and 2023. She said she hoped that by July or August she could take the National Rail Bill to the cabinet and put it out for public comment.

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The South African business community used this week’s South Africa-Kenya Business Forum to urge leaders of both countries to eliminate red tape and tariffs that stand in the way of trade across the continent.

Stavros Nicolaou, Aspen Pharmacare Group senior executive and board member of Business Unity South Africa, told Business Times participants in the business sector focused on the urgent need to remove barriers to trade between the two countries.

“In the context of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement [AfCFTA], we’re supposed to have a tariff-free regime, if you export from one country on the continent to another. Our comments were largely aimed at that.

“This forum will meet again in two years’ time in Kenya. It was the joint and common view of both presidents that we should work towards reducing red tape and reviewing progress made in two years’ time on trade.”

At the forum, President Cyril Ramaphosa hosted President William Ruto and announced that South Africa planned to suspend import duties on tea and coffee products from Kenya, which were imposed in retaliation for Kenyan tarrifs on South African steel.

Kenya exports flowers, precious stones, machinery, spices and vegetables. We must strive to deepen our trade and investment relationship in a way that diversifies our economic growth and innovation while narrowing the deficit.

Stavros Nicolaou, Aspen Pharmacare Group senior executive

Nicolaou said meetings on the sidelines of the forum settled on four priorities — the reduction of red tape, AfCFTA, accelerating industrialisation and setting up pool procurement in specific sectors. “Delays in import and export permits are examples of what falls under regulatory red tape,” he said.

The forum broke into meetings that discussed maximising co-operation in key sectors, including agro-processing, manufacturing, financial services, tech and innovation and pharmaceuticals.

Speaking at the forum, Nicolaou said countries were repositioning themselves around industrial capacity, energy security, critical minerals, technologies and regional market access. “Our total merchandise trade amounted to $617m (R10bn) in 2024 — exports $567m and imports $50m. Colleagues would be aware that the South African export basket is composed of both raw materials, intermediate and finished products in the automotive, steel, petroleum and machinery sectors.

“Kenya exports flowers, precious stones, machinery, spices and vegetables. We must strive to deepen our trade and investment relationship in a way that diversifies our economic growth and innovation while narrowing the deficit.”

Ramaphosa said: “We are prioritising ports and corridors and working out how best to harmonise customs for the era of digital trade, in line with the AfCFTA. On the digital side, our officials are updating our ICT agreements to keep pace with technology — covering industrial innovation, technology transfer, digital trade and artificial intelligence.”

Sim Tshabalala, Standard Bank Group CEO, said the deepening of trade parity between the two economies would be mutually beneficial, as South Africa provided around 10% of Kenya’s foreign direct investment stock, while Kenya provided less than 1% of South Africa’s.

Ola Oyetayo, CEO and co-founder of Verto, told Business Times that it was easier for a business in South Africa to pay a business in London than pay a business elsewhere on the continent. Africa’s 54 countries and 46 currencies present a challenge for harmonising policies.

“There’s no lack of will and policies that aim to reduce the current friction payments within Africa and outside of Africa. The challenge we are facing is implementation. One of the reasons is the regulatory silos that we have.”

He said that while agreements like Pan African Payments and Settlement System (PAPSS) were positive, too many regulators existed with different systems to make the most of the intended synergies for more cross-border transactions within the region.

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Retail group TFG plans to close 100 underperforming stores and reduce inventory purchases as it anticipates another subdued year locally.

The owner of brands that include Foschini, The Fix, Exact, Sportscene, @Home, Volpes and Jet said its South African operations faced a difficult trading environment last year, dampened by weaker consumer demand, which resulted in a drop in earnings for the year ended March.

Chief executive Anthony Thunström said the retailer had identified about 300 underperforming stores across its portfolio, and that closures will only happen after every effort had been made to improve performance.

“Closing stores is absolutely the last resort after you’ve tried everything else. We look to see whether one of our other brands would perhaps trade better in that store, in that location,” he said.

The retailer will also reduce floor space in some stores and use them as hubs for online orders, following the strong performance from online platform Bash, which now contributes 10% of local sales. “We’re finding that you can actually serve your customer better and be more profitable by not necessarily having as big a store as you had before, providing you’ve got Bash to complement it.”

He expects Bash to contribute 15% of turnover within the next two to three years.

The retailer is also maintaining tight control over costs as it anticipates another tough trading period. “We’ve anticipated a more subdued year. We’re buying less inventory than we bought last year. As a result, we’re aiming to achieve a higher gross margin, and we’re being very, very careful on expenses and costs.”

Thunström said that despite pressure on its South African business, profitability remained relatively resilient given the economic backdrop. “The real number to look at is our operating margin. Our operating margin in South Africa was down only 14.8%. Given how tough last year was, that’s not something that is unexpected.”

A major contributor to the weaker performance in the year under review was TFG’s sports division — particularly internationally branded footwear — which was hit by softer consumer demand and excessive inventory levels.

“You have to order branded footwear nine months before you sell it,” Thunström said, adding that sportswear was “very cyclical”.

He added: “You’ll have a couple of years where everybody wants branded sports clothing and footwear, and then that might last three or four years, when that kind of hype and demand really come off.

“With some of the big sports brands, there’s been a year or two where there hasn’t been a lot of innovation in their product. People then don’t want to buy something new because it’s similar to what they could have bought last year.”

While some categories struggled, others significantly outperformed the market. Women’s fashion brands Foschini, Jet and The Fix helped drive women’s wear sales growth of 8.9%, while beauty sales surged 21.6%. “The majority of that growth has come out of beauty within our existing stores, particularly within Jet,” said Thunström.

He identified Jet as one of the standout performers in the portfolio.

“The real growth engine in terms of the mid-to-value segment has definitely been Jet.”

TFG, which also operates in Australia and London, expects to open between 80 and 90 stores. The group now trades out of 4,914 stores across 18 countries. It has 3,432 stores in South Africa, which contribute significantly to group turnover.

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BMW’s IT Hub in South Africa has evolved over two decades from a small technology experiment into one of the German automaker’s most important global digital operations, developing software and managing systems used across 134 countries.

What began in 2006 as a small specialist support unit exporting South African technology skills to the rest of the world has grown into the largest BMW IT Hub outside Germany. Today, the Pretoria-based operation employs thousands of technology professionals and serves as a cornerstone of BMW’s global digital ecosystem.

Established as one of four BMW business entities in South Africa, the hub now develops and manages systems supporting the automaker’s vehicle production, finance, treasury management, human resources, sales, digital retail and after-sales services worldwide.

“We started with the idea of taking highly skilled technology talent from South Africa to the rest of the world,” said Jochem Goller, board member of BMW AG for customer, brands and sales.

Twenty years later, that vision has evolved into a global software operation employing roughly the same number of people as BMW’s Rosslyn vehicle manufacturing plant.

The hub’s economic impact has also expanded significantly. Over the past several years, it has created more than 2,600 new jobs through continued growth and is expected to contribute more than R4bn to South Africa’s economy in 2026. BMW estimates that the operation indirectly supports approximately 40,000 people through jobs and economic activity generated in surrounding communities.

The hub’s 20th anniversary comes at a time when software is becoming increasingly important to the automotive industry. Goller said in an interview that the profile of automotive talent is changing rapidly as vehicles become more connected and digitally enabled.

“Before, most of our engineers were mechanical engineers because you would build engines and gearboxes,” he said. “Today, you need mechanical engineering knowledge, but you also need software engineering skills. Without a certain knowledge of software, you can no longer become an automotive engineer,” Goller said.

BMW increasingly views its vehicles as software-defined products, where AI, data analytics, digital interfaces and over-the-air functionality play a growing role in both vehicle development and customer experience.

That shift has elevated the strategic importance of BMW’s South African technology hub. Software developed at the hub supports virtually every stage of the automaker’s value chain.

One of the hub’s most significant innovations is AIQX, an AI-powered quality inspection platform. The system uses machine learning, cameras and computer vision technology to inspect vehicle components in real time, identifying defects, missing parts and quality issues before vehicles leave the production line.

The platform has already been rolled out through more than 1,200 applications across BMW’s global production network and can detect everything from incorrectly installed safety belts and manufacturing defects to paint imperfections and abnormal vehicle sounds.

The hub also operates BMW’s global production control centre, monitoring 20 manufacturing plants worldwide on a 24-hour basis and providing real-time support for critical production systems.

Beyond manufacturing, South African-developed software is helping transform how BMW sells vehicles globally. The hub played a leading role in developing BMW’s direct-sales platform, which was first piloted locally before being expanded across 24 European markets.

More than 400 software specialists work on systems supporting the entire customer journey, including online vehicle configuration, trade-ins, vehicle recommendations, invoicing and delivery.

According to Peter van Binsbergen, CEO of BMW Group South Africa, the software developed locally has become a competitive advantage for the company. “The customer journey part of what we do as a business is one of the strongest examples of what the IT Hub has achieved,” he said.

Van Binsbergen also highlighted the development of a technology that creates a complete digital history of every vehicle produced, tracking manufacturing specifications, production records and vehicle data throughout its lifecycle. “You have a full digital file of the history of this car to always refer back to if questions are asked by authorities, if the car is sold and the car is exported. And I think that was a brilliant creation by the IT Hub,” he said.

The South African operation has become increasingly important to BMW’s AI ambitions. Teams at the hub manage AI platforms used by more than 20,000 BMW employees globally, develop specialised AI assistants and support software development teams across the organisation.

While concerns persist globally about AI replacing jobs, BMW executives believe the technology is more likely to reshape roles than eliminate them.

“People who use AI will replace people who do not use AI,” said Goller. “There will be certain tasks that become automated, but new jobs are also being created. If you do not embrace AI and learn how to work with it, it will become difficult to find work.”

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Consumers may face higher prices on selected food products in the coming months as rising fuel, logistics and raw material costs continue to squeeze manufacturers despite efforts by producers to shield households from the full impact of inflation.

Speaking after Tiger Brands’ interim results this week, CFO Thushen Govender said the group would not be able to absorb all cost pressures indefinitely, particularly in categories where key raw materials have experienced significant inflation.

“The increase wouldn’t be as significant as the full extent of the input cost inflation we’ve seen on fuel and diesel,” he said, noting that the company is keeping price increases to a minimum through its continuous improvement initiatives like tighter management of promotional spending. The company is also shifting towards PET packaging for some products, such as Crosse & Blackwell mayonnaise, which management believes could enable more affordable product formats.

Govender warned, however, that certain categories would be more exposed than others.

“In our mayonnaise category, edible oils are a big input cost and a big input raw material, and there we’ll have to pass on some of that cost-push inflation to our consumer because it’s such a material part of the product recipe,” he said.

All Weather Capital equity analyst Lwando Ngwane said these pressures represented one of the biggest risks facing consumer-facing companies in the current environment.

“The biggest risks currently are risks that all consumer-led companies face around inflationary pressures coming through from rising fuel costs, which are expected to dampen consumer spend,” she said.

Tiger Brands reported strong volume growth for the six months to March, which management attributed to efforts aimed at making its products more accessible to consumers amid strained household budgets.

The company reported revenue of R17.9bn, up 1.3%, with volume growth of 2.6% offsetting price deflation of 1.3%. All major business units reported growth in operating income, with the grains and culinary divisions leading the pack. Grains revenue of R3.5bn was driven by volume growth of 6.9%, offset by price deflation of 10.8% in soft commodities. Operating income increased by 91.7% to R441m. Revenue in the culinary division, which houses the Black Cat, Purity and All Gold brands, increased by 8.7% to R5.7bn, driven by 6.0% volume growth and 2.7% price inflation. Operating income was R562m, 26.9% higher than the prior year.

Ngwane described the group’s first-half performance as “without doubt a good quality set of numbers”, pointing to substantial improvements in operating efficiency across key business units.

“The issue Tiger Brands struggled with before Tjaart Kruger took office as CEO was the negative operating leverage, while peers like AVI and Premier Group had the opposite,” she said.

“This was driven mainly by its grains, milling and baking assets that were broadly inefficient. Since Tjaart took over as Group CEO, we have seen good portfolio rationalisation, selling of non-performing assets and getting the business back to focus on cost leadership. This print was proof that the strategy has started to bear fruit.”

Tiger Brands is expanding its presence in informal trade channels, where it now services more than 110,000 spaza and general trade outlets nationwide. According to Govender, the channel has delivered double-digit revenue growth, driven by an expanding store footprint and increased basket penetration.

Beyond its core categories, Tiger Brands is also targeting changing consumer behaviour through what it calls the “snackification” trend. Govender said consumers are increasingly looking for convenient, on-the-go meal and snack options as lifestyles become busier and health-conscious purchasing becomes more prevalent.

“We’ve got some great brands that we could utilise and leverage in order to meet the snackification consumer trend that we see, which is a growth platform that we can capture,” he said. The company is also exploring innovation in portable snack formats and convenience offerings across categories, including baby nutrition products.

Another growth avenue lies in its pest-control business, where the company is looking to reduce reliance on South Africa’s seasonal mosquito market.

Govender said the group has registered its Doom products in neighbouring markets including Botswana, Namibia, Eswatini, Zambia and Mozambique, where warmer climates support year-round demand. It also plans to broaden consumer awareness of the Doom range beyond mosquitoes to include ants, cockroaches and other household pests.

“It’s a two-pronged strategy to grow outside of the mosquito season,” Govender said, combining regional expansion with deeper penetration of the domestic market.

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It’s a decision that infuriated environmental activists. But for Eskom’s board and executives, it was a necessary decision to keep the lights on.

Eskom’s board in May 2024 resolved to postpone the mothballing of the Hendrina, Grootvlei and Camden coal-fired power stations until 2030, later than their original decommissioning schedule.

Camden, in service since 1969, and Grootvlei, which has injected power into the national grid since 1977, were supposed to have been retired last year, while Hendrina, around for the past 50 years, was initially set to be decommissioned this year.

The three power stations, all based in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province coal belt, together have an installed capacity of about 4,500MW.

Two years after the polarising decision, South Africa is set for its first winter without fear of the dreaded economy-sapping blackouts that came to be known as load-shedding.

Eskom has kept the lights on for more than a year without implementing load-shedding — underscoring the significant progress it has made since 2023 — a year in which the economy experienced more than 200 days of load-shedding.

Several things have occurred since the 2023 fiasco that culminated in stabilising the national grid.

The government roped in new leadership in the form of Dan Marokane as group CEO in March 2024 — following the exit of André de Ruyter, ending a disastrous term that culminated in his losing the support of the government and the board.

Marokane’s appointment was preceded by that of Bheki Nxumalo as head of generation and has been credited with playing an instrumental role in improving the performance of the grid — he was quick to show underperforming power station managers the door and replace them with more competent candidates.

It is, however, the fateful, albeit unpopular, decision to keep Camden, Grootvlei and Hendrina online that has also had a decisive impact — underscoring the tough trade-offs facing the country in keeping the lights on versus meeting its just transition commitments.

Eskom’s energy availability factor (EAF) improved to almost 65% in the 2026 financial year, from 55% in 2024.

Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said the move to postpone the decommissioning of the three power plants was a critical decision by the Eskom board, led by Mteto Nyati.

“It not only supported improvements in the EAF but also created space for critical maintenance at other stations not in full compliance with emissions requirements,” Mokwena said.

“As a result, by the close of last financial year and into the start of this financial year, the entire generation fleet achieved compliance with particulate emissions. The availability of these stations assisted stations such as Kendal, Lethabo, Matimba and others to undergo much-needed refurbishments, particularly on emissions control, alongside other major maintenance interventions.

“Although these three stations began the financial year with most units still on outage to ensure readiness for winter, we are pleased to report that as winter intensifies, their EAF today stands at Grootvlei 63%, Camden 73.4%, and Hendrina 78%.”

With Eskom’s coal fleet the biggest emitter of pollutants in the country, the decision to delay the mothballing of the three power plants has had its critics

The stations’ daily EAF contributions also significantly reduce diesel consumption, which directly strengthens Eskom’s bottom line.

With Eskom’s coal fleet the biggest emitter of pollutants in the country, the decision to delay the mothballing of the three power plants has had its critics.

A new report by Greenpeace Africa, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and GroundWork says that delaying the phase-out of coal-fired power in South Africa will result in devastating health and economic consequences.

The report found that keeping these plants open beyond their planned retirement dates will cause an estimated 32,000 additional premature deaths between 2026 and 2050 and cost the economy about R700bn in lost working days and pressure on the public health-care system.

Cynthia Moyo, climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, said South Africa has more than enough wind, solar and storage capacity to replace the coal plants.

“Keeping these polluting plants open is a deliberate political choice that sacrifices human lives,” she said. “We demand the government accelerate the coal phase-out immediately and implement a just transition to renewable energy that protects workers and communities.”

The 2025 integrated resource plan assumes a phased shutdown of the coal fleet starting in 2029, with a significant reduction of 8GW in coal capacity between 2029 and 2030, followed by a further decline of 15GW between 2034 and 2042.

However, the fate of Eskom’s ageing coal fleet depends largely on whether new capacity will come online in time to secure energy security.

“Eskom’s approach to retiring coal-fired generation capacity is guided by the principle of ensuring security of supply,” Mokwena said. “Current plans provide for the shutdown of approximately 7.4GW of coal net capacity by 2030. At the same time, we continue to maintain all stations to ensure they remain ready to operate should security of supply dictate so.”

Alexander Zverev moved to within touching distance of a long-coveted maiden Grand Slam title, as the German dismantled 26th seed Jakub Mensik 7-5 6-2 3‑6 6-3 on Friday to reach the final of the French Open again.

The 29-year-old, who has lost three major finals, including one at Roland Garros two years ago, will face 10th seed Flavio Cobolli for the title, after Matteo Arnaldi retired due to illness ahead of their all-Italian clash.

Long denied by the golden generation of Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic, and more recently by young guns Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, Zverev will look to move into the Grand Slam winners’ club on Sunday.

Pour la quatrième fois, Alexander Zverev est à un match de son premier titre en Grand Chelem :

🇺🇸 US Open 2020 : ❌ (Thiem)
🇫🇷 Roland-Garros 2024 : ❌ (Alcaraz)
🇦🇺 Open d’Australie 2025 : ❌ (Sinner)
🇫🇷 #RolandGarros 2026 : ❓ pic.twitter.com/yA39uDlmsf

— Univers Tennis 🎾 (@UniversTennis) June 5, 2026

“I knew that it would be my toughest challenge. I managed it and I won, so I’m happy,” said Zverev, who became only the fifth active player to reach multiple Roland Garros finals.

“It’s amazing the way he [Mensik] played these last two weeks, he beat so many unbelievable players. He started playing amazing in the third set, stepping up his level, but this is a Grand Slam with best-of-five-set matches.

“Things happen and your opponents will play better. You have to deal with it. I hope to play another great match on Sunday.”

A tight opening set on a sun-kissed Court Philippe Chatrier tilted Zverev’s way when he struck a backhand crosscourt winner in the 11th game to bring up a break point, and he nudged ahead with a delicate shot that Mensik sent into the net.

Fast reflexes at the net ⚡️#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/JkbaMNsNSf

— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 5, 2026

The world number three sent down a powerful ace to pocket the first set and asserted himself with an early break at the start of the second set, as the 20-year-old Mensik’s level briefly dipped in his maiden Grand Slam semifinal.

Mensik sat with a towel over his head during a changeover and his troubles deepened after the restart, when Zverev took his game up a few notches and sealed a double break, before comfortably doubling his lead in the match.

After a long medical timeout for a neck issue, Czech Mensik mixed his booming serve with deft drop shots to break for a 4-2 lead en route to winning the third set, but Zverev powered through the next with no drama to prevail.

“Today’s match had a lot of stories,” Mensik said. “Of course, Sascha is a very tough guy on the court. I mean, he’s not giving you any free points. It’s very tough to find the rhythm, especially when he’s staying so far back, and you feel like you’re hitting a wall.

“It was difficult to get into my zone. I had my game plan; it was super tough to choose the right shots. There were good moments, and of course worse moments in that match.”

It made no sense for me to play, out of respect for him. It would not have been a good match

Matteo Arnaldi

As the dust settled on the absorbing clash, French Open organisers said Cobolli would go through to his first major title clash after Arnaldi withdrew with a virus.

“It’s not what I wanted to do,” Arnaldi said. “Last night I started to feel unwell and then at dinner I started to feel so-so in my stomach and I woke up at 1 am and started vomiting.

“It made no sense for me to play, out of respect for him. It would not have been a good match.”

Cobolli said Arnaldi’s pullout had also left him emotional.

“It was tough for me,” Cobolli added. “When he came to me [with the news] an hour ago, I almost cried. I have a lot of respect for him and he’s an inspiration for a lot of us.”

Fitch said in a statement it saw South Africa’s debt-to-GDP levels well below those expected when it downgraded the country to BB- in 2020.

In a separate statement, South Africa’s National Treasury said it was Fitch’s first upgrade in almost 21 years and that it was committed to sound public finances and implementing economic reforms.

“South Africa still has some way to go to regain its investment-grade credit rating, but for the first time in more than a decade we are seeing a clear turnaround in the downward ratings trend,” Treasury director-general Duncan Pieterse said.

Fitch said South Africa’s rating remained constrained by high inequality and a high interest-to-revenue ratio but that it was supported by a favourable government debt structure with long maturities and mostly local-currency denomination.

It expects government debt to stabilise at about 80% of GDP over the next two years, supported by continued primary surpluses, stronger revenue collection and improved market sentiment.

Fitch’s upgrade comes after Moody’s shifted its outlook on South Africa’s Ba2 rating last month to positive from stable.

This week the National Treasury’s Pieterse said South Africa was on track to meet its fiscal targets despite the Iran war.

Reuters

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The Toyota Rav4, the car that helped create the modern SUV segment more than three decades ago, is the world’s best-selling car but is a relatively niche player in South Africa.

The Japanese SUV may become even more fringe with the local launch of the new-generation model. It has been positioned as a more premium SUV than before, as it cannot compete with Chinese SUVs on price, and the latest, sixth-generation Rav4 line-up ranges from R770,500 to more than R1m.

What started as a tiny, Tonka toy-like three-door SUV in 1994 has over the years grown in size and sophistication, and the latest version arrives with a bolder design, more refinement, safety and technology.

The five-model line-up launched in South Africa this week comprises three hybrids, a plug-in hybrid and a regular petrol-powered version. The 2.5l electrified variants are all-wheel drives while the 2.0l petrol is pulled by its front wheels, with continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) serving duty across the line-up.

Toyota has positioned the hybrid (HEV) model in GX specification as the entry point to the range, below the less powerful but more luxurious 2.0 petrol VX.

The baseline hybrid GX has a petrol-electric powertrain with total system outputs of 176kW and 221Nm, with a claimed fuel consumption of 4.5l/100km and a 7.3 second 0-100km/h sprint.

Standard specification includes 18-inch alloy wheels, LED headlamps, black roof rails, a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, a 10.5-inch multimedia display, dual-zone automatic climate control, a power tailgate, wireless charging and comprehensive Toyota Safety Sense 4.0 functionality.

The 2.5 HEV VX has the same power but adds extra niceties such as a panoramic roof, digital rear-view mirror, and heated and ventilated seats, among other features.

The 2.5 HEV is also available in GR-S trim for the first time, with the same hybrid drivetrain as the other two models but jazzed up with a sporty styling package comprising 20-inch alloy wheels, sharper suspension tuning, lowered ride height and exclusive interior appointments.

The sole petrol derivative, the 2.0 VX, delivers 127kW and 203Nm from its normally-aspirated engine at a quoted 6.3l/100km, and claims 10.3 seconds for the 0-100km/h sprint. The VX spec brings extra niceties such as leather upholstery, a moonroof, rain-sensing wipers, head-up display, a 12.9-inch multimedia screen, JBL premium audio and additional convenience features.

The range-topper is the 2.5 plug-in hybrid (PHEV) which brings a more spirited 242kW and 228Nm to the party. It claims a 5.7-second 0-100 sprint and a remarkable fuel consumption of just 0.7l/100km. Its high-capacity battery delivers an electric driving range of up to 142km, which for some owners could mean daily commuting without using fuel at all.

The Rav4 PHEV supports AC and DC fast-charging infrastructure, and an AC wallbox home charger is offered as an extra-cost option.

At the launch this week, held in the Western Cape, I drove the hybrid and PHEV models, with the petrol variant not available.

First up was the high-specced 2.5 hybrid VX which delivered reasonably brisk commuting and cruising performance at sea level. It is a refined powertrain until you push the pace, which summons some of the typical CVT “rubber band” and droning characteristics, if not as markedly as in some cars we’ve driven.

The new Rav4 feels solid, with a nearly 10% increase in overall body rigidity compared with the previous generation. The lighter yet stronger body structure made for reasonably agile handling in the corners. It has a very comfortable ride quality too, though the Western Cape launch route didn’t include any gravel or bumpy roads to give the suspension a real test.

The HEV Rav4 self charges while it drives and is able to operate on electric power at low speeds for short distances. There wasn’t much stop-start city driving on the route, which is where hybrids are at their best in terms of frugality, but the test car averaged a decently economical 6.6l/100km on the mostly open-road drive.

Next up was the 2.5 PHEV model, which had a little more bounce in its stride and a more natural-feeling transmission, without as much of a rubber band effect. Again, this powertrain would really come into its own in urban driving and perhaps come close to the amazingly low fuel consumption claim, but in a cruise it managed 6.2l/100km. The more than R1m price of this range-topping Rav4 is a hefty premium over PHEV rivals such as the BYD Sealion 5 Dynamic, which retails for R569,900, and the more powerful Chery Tiggo 7 1.5T CSH Ultra, for R679,900.

The Rav4 makes a practical family car with its length of 4,600mm, which also puts it in competition with rivals such as the Chery Tiggo 7, Volkswagen Tiguan and Haval H6 in a well-contested SUV segment.

The Toyota’s cabin is roomy and comfortable, the boot is a decent size and visibility is good.

The cabin perhaps lacks the premium look and feel of some cheaper Chinese rivals. The Toyota has some soft-touch surfaces but they’re interspersed with hard plastics that reduce the overall business-class appeal.

In terms of user-friendliness, there are no complaints. The redesigned cabin has a modern and digitised focus with its large touchscreen, but physical buttons remain to conveniently quick-access features like aircon and radio volume controls with minimum distraction.

PRICES

Rav4 2.5 HEV GX - R770,500

Rav4 2.0 VX - R799,900

Rav4 2.5 HEV VX - R927,800

Rav4 2.5 HEV GR-S - R941,800

Rav4 2.5 PHEV - R1,043,900

Prices include a three-year/100 000 km warranty and six-services/90,000km service plan. The EV battery is covered by an eight-year/160,000km warranty.

Business Day

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Business Day TV spoke to Business Day’s Mudiwa Gavaza about what the move means for investors, Canal+’s African ambitions and the broader media landscape.

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Business Day

Business Day TV spoke to Transnet Port Terminals CEO Jabu Mdaki for more insight.

This time it was the issue of disruption of a key transport corridor — the Strait of Hormuz — that ushered in an elevated crisis. As a channel through which large volumes of oil are transported every day, any form of disruption to the strait directly affects oil prices and essentially binds the aggressors and the innocents in the ensuing economic fallout.

The nature of energy prices and their effects on all other dimensions of economic activity means no country is fully insulated from the consequences. Persistent conflicts create market disruptions that ultimately feed into the economic fundamentals of each country. For South Africa, the inflationary effects of higher oil prices are a problem that pits the South African Reserve Bank against all of us.

As an institution guided by its mandate of inflation targeting, the Reserve Bank is bound to respond to any looming inflation red flags through its single most potent and perhaps only critical instrument of intervention — interest rates. When the bank takes the view that the inflation horizon warrants intervention, it raises interest rates, as it did last week. The recent shift towards a singular reference inflation target rate of 3% rather than a range has altered the latitude the bank has. If inflationary expectations are projected to breach the latitude range, credibility questions regarding the bank’s ability to execute on its mandate will escalate.

The problem is that most citizens would argue that the response of raising rates is characteristic of a broken loop, as the driver of inflation — increased oil prices — is an exogenous development that has little to do with the long-term fundamentals of the economy. Even the purported ideal of interest rate adjustments — influencing the economy via the transmission mechanism where higher rates ultimately lead to a cooling down of the economy and a decline in the inflation heat — is hard to sell to citizens, who feel the response should not worsen their cash flow situation.

In countering the impact of higher oil prices, the National Treasury — responsible for fiscal policy — has implemented relief measures via the fuel levy, which has mitigated the impact but does not, on its own, solve the problem. The effect of this is that we are all essentially dependent on the ability and willingness of Donald Trump and his acolytes to reach a solution to the conflict and bring the oil markets back to a steady state and equilibrium position. Unfortunately, that requires the type of political maturity and diplomatic finessing that has hardly been evident in the actions of the Trump administration.

The one option that might bring some semblance of common sense is the looming US midterm election season, which might reignite some form of accountability in the US political system, which has seemed more imperial than democratic since Trump’s re-election. Unfortunately, the idea that the fate of the world is in the hands of the voters of one nation, whose political persuasions are as polarised as those of the US, invites new forms of reckoning for the world at large.

The reality is that Trump’s MAGA doctrine enjoys a resonance among American voters that will persist long beyond his presidency. The Middle East conflicts also have a persistence that has prevailed for decades and will continue beyond the Trump years. This means the persistence of the threats of disruption will linger for longer, and there’s not a lot the rest of us can do about it.

• Sithole (@coruscakhaya) is an accountant, academic and activist.

Spain’s 64-year-old manager Luis de la Fuente looks like a man who has made peace with football’s chaos.

Kind, warm, smiling and armed with the serene certainty of someone who has spent more than a decade building his team piece-by-piece, he heads to the World Cup with a side many regard as the one to beat.

De la Fuente, who spoke to Reuters before travelling to North America, said the secret of the European champions’ rise was more than a clear tactical path, a motivational speech or one man’s genius but something simpler and warmer.

“Some time ago, we began to emphasise a word that gave us a great deal of security, confidence and strength — family’. We want the Spanish national team to be a family,” he said.

“From the first player to the last, we all work with that idea in mind and that makes me feel very calm, very serene. It makes me work knowing that I am in good company and that gives me a great deal of confidence.”

That word has become the spine of his Spain outfit: a group bound not only by talent but by years of shared dressing rooms, junior tournaments, disappointments, trophies and trust.

It has been a long and unusual route to the top for De la Fuente, once a hard-working full back who made his name in the Basque Country with Athletic Bilbao and built his coaching career largely away from club football’s glare, spending a decade inside Spain’s youth system.

When he was appointed Spain manager over three years ago, parts of the media mocked him as “Luis de la Who?” He was seen by many as a low-key federation man, orderly and diligent, but lacking the glamour usually demanded of such a job.

His answer has been emphatic: Nations League glory in 2023, the European Championship in 2024 and a Spain side arriving at the World Cup carrying the confidence of a team that knows exactly what it is.

A practising Catholic who strives to live according to his faith, De la Fuente said he had no interest in settling old scores.

🛫 A @SEFutbol parte nuns minutos cara a Nashville 🇺🇸

⚔️ A próxima cita será o luns ante o Perú 🇵🇪

🏟️ Os de Luis de la Fuente xogarán no Estadio Cuauhtémoc de Puebla, México 🇲🇽 pic.twitter.com/EuiIjzlHnO

— En Xogo (@EnXogoG) June 5, 2026

“Time proves you right and proves you wrong. Time puts everyone in their place. I knew what I had to do,” he said.

“I’m not vindictive and I believe everyone should reflect on what they may have said or done and weigh it up. I haven’t changed a bit since then. I’m still the same person, believe me. My life hasn’t changed.

“I’m still doing exactly the same things I was doing three and a half years ago. I go to the same places, I go to the same restaurants, the same cafes, I walk down the street calmly doing exactly the same things.”

If others needed convincing, his players did not. De la Fuente’s greatest advantage was once treated as a weakness: he rose step-by-step and took many of this generation with him.

Mikel Merino played under him in back-to-back European Under-21 finals against Germany, losing in 2017 but winning two years later. Mikel Oyarzabal, Dani Olmo and Fabian Ruiz were also part of that 2019 success and became senior European champions.

Merino’s first international title with De la Fuente came even earlier, in 2015, when he played alongside Rodri and goalkeeper Unai Simon in Spain’s 2-0 win over Russia in the European Under-19 Championship final in Greece.

From those older figures to Pedri, Martin Zubimendi and Marc Cucurella, players who were part of Spain’s Olympic silver-medal campaign in Tokyo, De la Fuente has a squad that often appears to understand him before he finishes a sentence.

They know that what I tell them comes from honesty, from integrity, and always with their best interests at heart, because they know me

Luis de la Fuente

“Our relationship goes beyond the purely professional,” he said.

“With Rodri in particular, we’ve known each other for more than 10 years; since 2015 we’ve been through a lot.

“So I’m sure that in his life, and in the lives of many of the players who are with me today, there hasn’t been a single coach who’s been able to tell them things the way I’ve told them. I guarantee it.”

For De la Fuente, that intimacy is not just sentimental but them an edge.

“They know that what I tell them comes from honesty, from integrity, and always with their best interests at heart, because they know me,” he added.

“When someone speaks from a place of confidence, from that conviction, knowing that it will get through to you, touch your heart and convince you, well, I think we’ve already won a great deal.

“Then, out on the pitch, put all your talent at the service of that idea. And at the service of your teammates – that’s your job.”

Their job will be to first get past debutants Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay in Group H as they bid to win the country’s second World Cup title after Spain’s 2010 triumph.

This marks a groundbreaking initiative and a milestone in the country’s efforts to fight HIV/Aids.

Video courtesy of SABC.

TimesLIVE

She correctly identifies the serious conceptual weaknesses in the ESG “project” and acknowledges many of its metrics are inconsistent, opaque and methodologically unreliable.

However, despite these concessions her central argument ultimately rests on precisely the same intellectual error that has animated ESG from the beginning: the belief that company managers and capital allocators should somehow be transformed into quasi-political actors tasked with adjudicating social and environmental priorities. That proposition remains deeply flawed.

Schrywer argues ESG merely extends “the Hayekian logic of price discovery” to externalities “not yet” captured by markets. This formulation is elegant, but profoundly misleading.

Hayek’s insight rested on decentralised price formation emerging voluntarily through millions of independent exchanges within a competitive market order. ESG does the opposite — it superimposes politically and ideologically selected criteria onto capital allocation through institutional coercion, bureaucratic pressure and reputational intimidation.

There is nothing authentically Hayekian about a small group of ratings agencies, multilateral institutions, activist investors and state bureaucrats determining what constitutes acceptable corporate virtue. The problem is ESG metrics are fundamentally flawed and inherently incapable of neutrality.

ESG priorities inevitably involve contested moral, political and economic trade-offs. One investor may prioritise decarbonisation above all else. Another may regard employment creation as the overriding social imperative.

ESG frameworks cannot be reduced to technocratic scoring systems. Once investment decisions become contingent on politically fashionable preferences, capital allocation ceases to operate as an economic mechanism and becomes an instrument of social engineering.

Schrywer cites studies suggesting firms with higher ESG scores enjoy lower costs of capital. Even if accepted at face value, this proves very little. Large, mature, successful firms with abundant resources are naturally better positioned to comply with complex ESG reporting requirements, simply passing their costs on to customers.

This does not establish that ESG creates economic value. It merely demonstrates wealthy firms are better able to satisfy fashionably conceited compliance regimes. More importantly, the existence of preferential capital flows toward ESG-compliant firms is not evidence of market efficiency. It reflects instead the immense political and institutional pressures bearing on pension funds, banks, asset managers and the like.

If regulators signal climate exposure will attract punitive scrutiny, if activist campaigns threaten reputational damage, if disclosure obligations steadily escalate, then naturally capital will migrate toward firms most capable of navigating this regulatory perplexity. That is not spontaneous market discovery — it is perverse regulatory distortion.

Schrywer further argues South Africa must embrace ESG realities because international carbon border adjustment regimes are emerging regardless of our preferences. This argument deserves careful attention because it is probably the strongest practical case advanced by ESG proponents.

Yet even here, the conclusion does not follow. The fact that large jurisdictions such as the EU choose to impose carbon border taxes does not validate the intellectual foundations of ESG. It merely demonstrates the geopolitical capacity of wealthy economies to export their policy preferences into global trade. South Africa should recognise this reality clearly for what it is.

Over two centuries Europe industrialised through extraordinarily carbon-intensive development, often accompanied by severe environmental degradation and exploitative labour conditions. Having achieved prosperity and capital accumulation under those conditions, it now seeks to hobble and hold back others by imposing restrictive decarbonisation disciplines on countries still struggling to industrialise. That is not moral leadership — it is the internationalisation of developmental asymmetry.

South Africa’s economic reality cannot be wished away through “sustainability” rhetoric. Ours remains a coal-dependent developing economy with catastrophic unemployment, severe energy insecurity and chronically weak growth. Under such conditions, affordable and reliable energy is not merely an economic variable. It is an outright humanitarian necessity.

The fashionable tendency among ESG advocates to treat hydrocarbons as moral liabilities rather than developmental assets reflects a perspective overwhelmingly shaped by affluent post-industrial societies.

Schrywer criticises the Free Market Foundation for opposing South Africa’s carbon tax while simultaneously arguing pollution should, if necessary, be addressed through law. This confuses principle with policy. To acknowledge environmental harms may legitimately be addressed through narrowly tailored legislation does not imply support of every intervention advanced in the name of climate policy.

A carbon tax imposed on an economy already crippled by electricity shortages, regulatory overreach, excessive taxation, an extractive state, industrial decline and mass unemployment carries enormous economic and political risks. The question is whether the proposed policy response produces greater social and economic harm than the problem it seeks to address.

It is, moreover, not inconsistent to argue that if governments wish to regulate emissions, they should do so transparently through democratic legislation rather than through politicised capital allocation mechanisms. This distinction is crucial.

When governments legislate, voters retain at least some capacity for democratic accountability. ESG systems, by contrast, frequently transfer immense practical authority over economic outcomes to unelected actors largely insulated from public scrutiny and accountability. This is precisely why ESG increasingly appears less like responsible investing and much more like privatised technocracy.

Schrywer contends too that climate-related risks are directly affecting balance sheets through insurance costs, supply-chain disruptions and infrastructure pressures. But corporations have always managed material risks.

Commodity volatility, geopolitical instability, labour unrest, litigation exposure and technological disruption all affect long-term profitability. Markets everywhere already possess mechanisms for pricing such risks where they are genuinely material. The danger arises when the definition of “materiality” expands so broadly that virtually every political or social issue becomes grounds for investor intervention. At that point, corporate governance loses its focus.

Managers become accountable not merely for producing goods and services profitably within the law, but for satisfying an ever-expanding universe of activist expectations concerning climate, inequality, diversity, transgenderism, geopolitics and social justice. The result is managerial diffusion, reduced accountability and declining economic clarity.

Milton Friedman’s central insight remains correct: the social responsibility of business is to conduct business successfully within the framework of law and ethical conduct. Democratic societies possess governments precisely because political trade-offs should be resolved politically, not delegated to corporate boards, company managers, ratings agencies and asset managers.

None of this implies hostility toward responsible governance or voluntary philanthropy. Companies are entirely free to pursue sustainability initiatives, improve labour practices or reduce environmental impacts wherever shareholders and consumers support such measures. What is objectionable is the transformation of these discretionary preferences into quasi-compulsory ideological imperatives.

The triple bottom line fails because there is no coherent mechanism for balancing three allegedly equal bottom lines. When trade-offs become unavoidable, as they invariably do, economic sustainability must remain primary. Without profitability and growth there are neither jobs, nor investment, nor tax revenues, nor the surplus resources necessary to fund environmental improvement itself.

Prosperous societies become environmentally cleaner largely because they first become prosperous. History repeatedly demonstrates this sequence. The danger for South Africa is that in embracing ESG orthodoxy, we risk importing the luxury beliefs of wealthy economies into a society that has not yet achieved even the elementary foundations those societies long possess.

That does not represent enlightened progress; that represents a profoundly expensive delusion.

• Dr Benfield, a retired Wits University professor of economics, is a senior associate and board member of the Free Market Foundation.

The migration decision was among several major policy outcomes announced following the cabinet meeting, with ministers also:

• approving a revised industrial development strategy;
• formally closing all remaining matters related to Gauteng’s e-toll system; and
• withdrawing the government’s draft AI policy for further work.

Ntshavheni said the cabinet had approved a comprehensive approach to migration developed by the intermnisterial committee on migration. The cabinet also approved the National Action Plan country report on migration in South Africa.

“The president will address the nation on this matter,” she said.

The migration announcement comes amid increasing political and public debate around border management, illegal immigration, asylum processes and pressures on public services.

The cabinet also approved a revised industrial development strategy aimed at accelerating industrialisation and economic growth. The strategy is built around three pillars: decarbonisation, digitalisation and diversification. It prioritises sectors such as steel, automotive manufacturing, mining, agro-processing, the digital economy and the green economy.

According to the Presidency, the strategy is expected to create thousands of jobs annually, with a focus on skills development and preparing unemployed people for opportunities in manufacturing and renewable energy industries. A committee of ministers chaired by Ramaphosa will oversee its implementation.

According to Stats SA’s international tourism report, South Africa recorded 989,329 tourist arrivals in April, the highest monthly year-on-year growth recorded to date

In another significant decision, the cabinet approved the closure of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project and all remaining matters associated with the recovery of historical e-toll debt.

The cabinet noted recommendations from the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) that debt owed by motorists who did not pay e-tolls be written off. The National Treasury will service the debt, while motorists who paid toll fees will not receive refunds because the tolling system was lawful at the time, the Presidency said.

The cabinet approved the withdrawal of the draft AI policy published for public comment in March. Ntshavheni said the withdrawal would allow the government to rework the policy and ensure it establishes national standards for the ethical use of AI.

The cabinet statement also highlighted what the government described as strong growth in tourism. According to Stats SA’s international tourism report, South Africa recorded 989,329 tourist arrivals in April, the highest monthly year-on-year growth recorded to date.

The cabinet said recent decisions by Latam Airlines and Air Europa to expand direct flight routes to South Africa would further strengthen tourism and business links with Europe and Latin America.

Ntshavheni also announced that the cabinet had approved the submission of the Repeal of Certain Pre-1994 Justice Laws Bill to parliament. The bill seeks to repeal 149 apartheid-era justice laws that remain on the statute books despite no longer serving a practical purpose in the constitutional era.

Among other matters, the cabinet welcomed Telkom’s financial performance, noting that the government is expected to receive about R559m in dividend income from the telecommunications group. It said Telkom supported 362 small businesses through procurement opportunities worth R593m, contributed to the creation of 74,114 jobs and trained 1,524 unemployed young people through ICT learnerships during the year ended March 2026.

The cabinet also:

• received reports on preparations for South Africa’s hosting of the Sadc summit in August;
• approved appointments to several state entities; and
• endorsed government programmes linked to:
• • Youth Month;
  • voter registration ahead of the November 2026 local government elections; and
  • the rollout of the long-acting HIV prevention injection Lenacapavir.

Business Day

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Sanlam Investments has repositioned itself to cash in on the boom in alternative assets, private equity and SME debt in a bid to rewrite the asset management playbook.

To this end, the asset manager, owned by financial services major Sanlam, has set its growth blueprint on the following pillars: indexation, private wealth and alternative investments.

The company’s businesses — Satrix, Sanlam Investments Multi-Manager, Sanlam Private Wealth and Sanlam Alternative Investments — are expected to play a key role as the asset manager enters its next growth phase after the sale of its active asset management businesses in South Africa and the UK to Ninety One.

That deal saw Sanlam Investments transfer about R400bn worth of assets to Ninety One — with the Sanlam group taking a 12.5% stake in Ninety One, which marshals about R4-trillion in assets.

Carl Roothman, CEO of Sanlam Investments, said the money manager is rewriting the asset management playbook, with its model geared toward putting forth tailored solutions for high-net-worth, retail and institutional clients.

Roothman, who leads the R1.1-trillion asset manager, said the company is moving from an era of passive allocation to one of purposeful deployment.

“What was once a business of allocating capital across public markets is now one of designing outcomes in a world defined by persistent uncertainty. In these conditions, the urge to react is strong, but frequent repositioning for short-term certainty rarely delivers long-term value,” Roothman said.

“In the new era of investing, traditional unit trusts are losing ground to more flexible, cost-effective instruments such as exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded notes — solutions that offer clients greater choice, broader exposure, and enhanced flexibility.”

“At the same time, alternative assets — across private equity, SME debt, infrastructure, and property — have moved to the centre of portfolio construction. Alternatives are forecast to represent approximately 25% of global assets under management and over 50% of global revenue within the next decade.”

The outfit already has a dominant position in the indexation space, with it holding more than 30% market share of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in South Africa via Satrix, which has R320bn in assets.

Sanlam Investment’s alternatives franchise manages about R200bn in assets, while the private wealth business manages more than R256bn in assets — making it South Africa’s second-largest wealth manager.

Sanlam Investments Multi-Manager, which includes household names such as Graviton, Amplify Investment Partners and Glacier Invest, has amassed R520bn in assets, enjoying a 27% market share.

Nearly R60bn of the assets managed by Sanlam Investments Multi-Manager have been allocated to black-owned asset managers.

“We have also developed new capabilities, including establishing two leading discretionary fund managers, Glacier Invest and Graviton. Through the Sanfin demerger, we launched a scaled alternatives fund platform focused on private market strategies across Africa and select emerging markets, complementing our existing private equity and SME debt offerings,” Roothman said.

“As client needs evolve, markets shift and global forces reshape the landscape, the focus is moving decisively towards solutions‑led investing. Sanlam Investments enters this new era with confidence and with a reimagined, future‑fit investment platform designed to deliver solutions that combine scale, innovation and impact across the evolving investment spectrum.”

Sanlam Structured Solutions (SSS), a division of Sanlam Investments, has had a stellar start to the year, having been awarded R16.2bn third-party mandates on institutional portfolios. St John Bunkell, the executive head of portfolio management at SSS, said the strong start was enabled by its dynamic portable alpha strategy.

“We manage more than R80bn in portable alpha strategies. Our task is to deliver well-balanced and optimally structured solutions for clients.

“At the heart of these mandates is our portable alpha capability, which allows investors to separate beta (market exposure) from alpha (skill-based return), enabling more efficient portfolio construction.”

Correction: June 5 2026

Sanlam’s private wealth business manages R256bn in assets, not R25bn as we reported previously.

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Foschini and Sportscene owner TFG has reported a steep decline in earnings for its 2026 financial year as weaker trading conditions across its major markets and write-downs of brands in the UK and Australia weighed on performance.

The retailer’s headline earnings per share for the year to end-March fell 33.5% to 675.4c, while operating profit before brand impairments and acquisition costs dropped 22.1%.

TFG said trading conditions worsened during the second half of the year in South Africa, the UK and Australia.

“Group performance was adversely affected by a weaker second half as trading conditions deteriorated across all operating regions. The impact of softer peak season demand and lower gross margins resulted in negative operating leverage,” it said.

TFG recognised non-cash impairment charges against the Phase Eight brand in the UK and the Tarocash and yd. brands in Australia after revising the long-term cash flow expectations for those businesses.

Despite the pressure on earnings, group revenue increased 7.2% and sales rose 7.1% during the year. Excluding White Stuff, sales growth was 2.8%.

Its home market, South Africa, remained the group’s biggest contributor, accounting for 68.3% of group sales. TFG Africa grew sales by 5% and increased market share in womenswear by 50 basis points and in homeware and furniture by 40 basis points, according to Retail Liaison Committee data, it said.

The group’s online business continued to expand, with online sales rising 31.7% and contributing 14.8% of total retail sales. At home, online sales grew 49.2%, supported by the Bash platform.

However, margins were pressured. Group gross margin declined by 120 basis points, while TFG Africa’s gross margin fell 100 basis points to 41.6%.

In the UK, sales increased 29.4%, largely supported by White Stuff. Excluding the acquisition, sales were flat as difficult retail conditions persisted. Australia remained under pressure, with sales declining 1.5% amid weak consumer demand and increased promotional activity across the sector.

The weaker earnings also affected shareholder returns. TFG declared a final shareholder payout of 140c per share, down 39.1% from 230c in the previous year.

The retailer opened 233 stores and closed 242 during the year, ending March with 4,914 stores across 18 countries.

The group said consumer spending is under pressure in all three markets. For the first nine weeks of the new financial year, sales grew 2.2% in TFG Africa and 1.7% in TFG London, while TFG Australia recorded a 2.3% decline. The group said gross margins in all three territories have started the new financial year about 100 basis points higher.

Business Day

The legal move comes after a meeting in Bangkok last month between Volvo Cars, the consumer protection board and customers failed to reach an agreement.

The office of the consumer protection board will act as a plaintiff for 550 complaints and will file each suit individually, Pradoemchai said. Next week the office will send the first case, which is seeking 1.2-million baht (about R600,000) in damages, to the public prosecutor, he said.

The Thai unit of Volvo Cars did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Volvo Cars declined to comment.

Reuters reported in February that Volvo would recall more than 40,000 EX30s globally and replace battery modules due to a defect that could cause packs to overheat and potentially catch fire. Volvo has subsequently said the number of vehicles in the recall has been reduced to 37,802 from 40,323.

Volvo Cars has said there were some delays to battery replacements due to the Iran war. It has said incidents remain rare, with fires reported in well under 0.1% of affected vehicles.

Reuters

It was first launched locally in 2021 and now benefits from a 2025 facelift. Two models are on sale in South Africa, comprising the iX xDrive45 M and the range-topping iX xDrive60 M Sport tested here.

The five-seater BMW iX has electric rivals in the Mercedes-Benz EQE, Lexus RZ and Volvo EX90, though the latter Swedish rival is a seven-seater. The BMW iX is also a price and size competitor to numerous conventionally powered Land Rover, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz SUVs.

The colourful BMW iX interior lays on space-age luxury for its four or five passengers on comfy leather seats.

The cabin surroundings are hallmarked by a large, horizontal and curved display for top-tier ergonomic and easy-operation digital menus. Amenities are plentiful, too, and include climate control, heated seats, powered seats, navigation, keyless entry and start, wireless Android Auto and CarPlay and more.

There is no panoramic sunroof due to the car’s carbon-fibre roof. BMW uses the strong but lightweight material to construct parts of the structure and exposed carbon fibre is visible when you open the doors while adding to the feeling of solidity that permeates this BMW.

Power comes from a pair of electric motors located on each axle for permanent all-paw traction. It develops 400kW and 765Nm instantly and achieves the 0-100km/h sprint in a claimed 4.6 seconds. Powerful? Without a shadow of doubt, though it runs out of steam at 200km/h.

The BMW iX M60 is a sporty handler for a 3.1 tonne behemoth. The solid structure plays a role here, with confident and wallow-free cornering abilities. The brakes that sit behind the optional 22-inch wheels offer strong retardation and it’s best enjoyed at a leisurely pace where it displays excellent damping.

It is equipped with all the modern driver assistance tools such as active cruise control, lane keeping assist and more, plus frugality is a part of the offerings. The integrated Eco mode and brake force regeneration assist in travelling a claimed 700km. A quick charge covered a real world 400km round trip with ease and little range anxiety experienced, and with more than 200km left to cover urban rounds.

In conclusion, we came away impressed with the BMW iX xDrive60 M Sport as a package. The space pod-shaped SUV didn’t put a foot wrong in showing that electric vehicles can work in South Africa. It juggles school and other home errands, including longer highway journeys with the family with ease and finesse. A 500l boot expandable to 1,750l aids functionality.

It also suffices as posh wheels for memorable entrances at social gatherings. It’s a car you can use to sprint down an enjoyable network of roads in the Sport mode that whistles electronic performance noises, with genuine driver engagement.

BMW iX vs rivals

• Lexus RZ 600e Direct4 F Sport, 313kW/537Nm ― R2,628,500
• Volvo EX90 Twin Motor Performance Ultra, 380kW/910Nm ― R2,650,000
• Audi SQ8 TFSI quattro, 373kW/770Nm ― R2,640,500
• BMW iX xDrive60 M Sport, 400kW/765Nm ― R2,689,000
• Land Rover Range Rover Sport D350 Autobiography, 258kW/700Nm ― R2,671,800
• Mercedes-Benz EQS 450 4Matic SUV, 265kW/800Nm ― R2,735,851
• Porsche Cayenne S e-hybrid, 382kW/750Nm ― R2,844,000

According to a report published by Brazilian motoring website BlogAuto, a heavily camouflaged prototype has been spotted driving on a highway near São Paulo.

From the front, it looks almost identical to the crossover SUV sold in SA, but from the C-pillar rearwards it replaces the familiar bodywork with a load box that appears capable of carrying around 500kg. Other distinguishing features include a large tailgate with integrated steps, a beltline that slopes upwards towards the rear, roof rails and what appear to be connected taillight clusters.

Powertrain options are rumoured to include a 1.8l flex-fuel hybrid, a 2.0l naturally aspirated petrol engine and a flex-fuel plug-in hybrid.

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Toyota Brazil currently manufactures the Corolla Cross SUV at its Sorocaba plant in São Paulo state.

In March 2024, Toyota announced plans to invest 11bn reais (R35.7bn at the time) in its Brazilian operations by 2030. The investment will be rolled out in two phases, with 5bn reais allocated by 2026 and the rest by 2030.

The programme includes the development of new hybrid-flex vehicles, local battery production, factory expansions and the introduction of a new vehicle tailored specifically to the Brazilian market.

Unibody pickups are proving increasingly popular in Brazil, with Volkswagen preparing to launch the Tukan and Renault developing the Niagara. The reported Corolla Cross-based pickup could well be the vehicle referred to in Toyota’s investment plans.

Toyota is expected to reveal the production-ready Corolla Cross pickup in early 2027.

The new Nissan Navara Pro plug-in hybrid is styled with similar muscular ethos as other bakkies from the region such as the BYD Shark 6 and LDV Terron, seemingly a varied model from the new Navara launched in November 2025, and based on the latest Mitsubishi Triton chassis, a group cousin.

Nissan SA was not available to comment on the varied models using the same nameplate and the strategy by the time of publication.

Nissan Primera

The all-new Primera EV sedan was also unveiled in the Philippines with a refined interior and enhanced connectivity features. The Nissan Primera was introduced in South Africa in the late 1990s as a larger and more premium offering to the mainstream Sentra models. It was also discontinued, and Nissan says the technical specifications and details of the new debutants will be introduced at a later timing closer to launch.

“This unveiling signals the beginning of our ‘From China’ export strategy, and I am pleased to see these vehicles reaching customers beyond China for the first time,” says Guillaume Cartier, Nissan’s chief performance officer.

“As a lead market, China plays a dual role for Nissan, both as a strong market in its own right and a critical source of global competitiveness.”

Alongside the new Navara Pro Plug-in Hybrid and Primera EV, Nissan also unveiled new hybrid versions of the Kicks e‑POWER subcompact crossover SUV and new X‑Trail e‑POWER.

Business Day

While France should be outright favourites, Norway and Senegal could be set for an intensive battle to emerge out of the group. Iraq, who endured a tough qualification that included taking long routes due to the war, should be the whipping boys.

FRANCE

Having reached the last final in 2022, losing out to Argentina only on penalties, Les Bleus head to North America the firm favourites as the number one-ranked side in the world with an army of superstars in their ranks.

They possess a deadly attack led by captain Kylian Mbappé and backed by the prodigious talents of Ousmane Dembélé, Desire Doue and Michael Olise, among others. The experience of Ngolo Kanté and Aurélien Tchouaméni should come in handy for a team that can destroy anyone.

France are a side so good it’s difficult to find a single fault in them, unless complacency and dressing room division creep in to scupper long-serving coach Didier Deschamps’s plans to add to his 2018 triumph as coach, and 1998 title as a player.

• Fifa ranking: 1
• Best World Cup finishes: Champions (1998 and 2018)
• World Cup appearances: 16

SENEGAL

The second-best ranked African team, Senegal will be among the sides carrying the continent’s hopes of a second-round qualification. They will back themselves to finish as runners-up behind France from this group.

The Lions of Teranga are a solid unit, as evidenced when they won the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) unbeaten in Morocco earlier this year, only for it to be awarded to the hosts via a controversial boardroom decision that is being challenged at the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Senegal’s spirits won’t be dampened, however, and they have a strong squad who have been together for a long time, led by skipper Kalidou Koulibaly and key man Sadio Mané.

Coach Pape Thiaw was the man behind the Afcon success in January and Febuary and should be able to get his team competitive in the World Cup. Apart from the threat of France, they should be able to get maximum points off Iraq and Norway.

• Fifa ranking: 14
• Best World Cup finishes: Quarterfinals (2002)
• World Cup appearances: 4

IRAQ

Their qualification for this World Cup is one of the most inspirational stories of overcoming adversity and huge hurdles. Due to the US war on neighbouring Iran, Iraq had challenges fulfilling their playoff against Bolivia in March as airspace was closed. They came up with alternative travel arrangements, which included long hours of road travel, and somehow they triumphed, securing only their second World Cup appearance.

It’s a miracle they are here, but, unfortunately, they should be the whipping boys in the group, even though Australian coach Graham Arnold has promised they will be competitive. One of their key players is Swedish-born Amir Al-Ammari, but Iraq will be lucky to better their record of only one goal and zero points from three matches in their only appearance in 1986.

• Fifa ranking: 54
• Best World Cup finishes: Group stage (1986)
• World Cup appearances: 2

NORWAY

Norway were one of the best performers across the European qualifying phase, winning all eight games and scoring an incredible 37 goals. They have one of the world’s most potent strikers in Erling Haaland, who is fresh from winning another Golden Boot in the English Premiership for Manchester City.

In midfield stalwart Martin Ødegaard they have one of the more dependable, senior players who has lifted his first Premiership title as Arsenal skipper, so they won’t be short on confidence. However, the World Cup has been foreign terrain for the Norwegians for almost 30 years. This is their first qualification since making the round of 16 in 1998.

Coach Ståle Solbakken will expect a battle with Senegal for a place behind favourites France, but they can shock anyone, as illustrated from their toppling of Italy in qualification.

• Fifa ranking: 31
• Best World Cup finishes: Last 16 (1998)
• World Cup appearances: 4

• TimesLIVE, Sowetan, The Herald, Daily Dispatch and Business Day online are profiling two 2026 WORLD CUP GROUPS every Tuesday until the tournament’s June 11 kickoff. Also catch the STAR PLAYER profile every Friday.

TimesLIVE

It’s developed in conjunction with Hedley Studios (formerly the Little Car Company) and launched in 2024 at the Monterey Car Week as a small-batch continuation series.

Hedley Studios handcrafts scaled-down, fully electric versions of iconic classic cars, while Momoa is best known for his breakout role as Khal Drogo on HBO’s Game of Thrones, and the superhero Arthur Curry in the DC Universe’s Aquaman films.

In 2019–2020, Bentley scanned all 630 components that made up the Blower so that they could digitally recreate it and create 12 new models hand-built at the company’s headquarters in Crewe, according to period specifications and production processes of the period.

The Momoa Bentley features more than 100 bespoke components, including the specially created, rich dark red Momoa Crimson body paint. It is paired with aged brass detailing across the bodywork, including brass fenders and wheel arches treated to develop a natural patina over time.

It also features a dashboard made from Koa wood that’s native to Hawaii, where Momoa was born, and associated with surfboards, instruments and traditional crafts.

A “Momoa 1 of 1” nameplate and a hand-carved brass skull drive selector are also included in the cabin, while the “666” radiator badge is a tribute to Momoa’s grandfather, who was nicknamed “El Diablo.”

The tinier model is powered by a 15kW electric motor that delivers 105km of range and is fully road legal in the UK, EU and US. The car features in the latest season of the actor’s HBO Max documentary series On The Roam, which follows him as he travels in pursuit of art, adventure, friendship and craftsmanship.

“It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Jason on this project,” said Ben Hedley, founder of Hedley Studios.

“He had a really clear vision of what he wanted to integrate into the car to make it a true one-off and personal to him: the story of his grandfather, the antiqued brass finishes, the unique paint shade and the wooden dash from his place of birth.

“What stood out most was the sense of fun and energy Jason brought to the whole process. He was completely engaged with the team behind the build, and that made the project feel genuinely collaborative from the start. It’s been a real honour to help bring his vision to life.”

Momoa is due to take delivery of his new, fully electric and road-legal toy, and the episode featuring the Hedley Studios creation is now available on HBO Max.

Mexico came from behind to beat Serbia 5-1 in their final 2026 FIFA World Cup warm-up match on Thursday, gaining momentum a week before opening the tournament on home soil.

Co-hosts Mexico play the opening game of the tournament against Bafana Bafana at Estadio Azteca on June 11 (1pm in Mexico City, 9pm SA time).

The clash is a rematch of the opening game of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa at FNB Stadium, which ended 1-1.

⚽️ Golazo de Johan Vásquez

🇲🇽 Mexico 1-1 Serbia 🇷🇸#FIFAFriendly #MEXSRB pic.twitter.com/OLE1rAml7h

— FC One Football (@FCOneFootball) June 5, 2026

Serbia struck first in the 19th minute on Thursday when Petar Stanic capitalised on a defensive lapse and a fortunate deflection before firing a low shot past goalkeeper Raul Rangel.

Mexico levelled in the 34th minute through defender Johan Vasquez, who headed home from Brian Gutierrez’s delivery after the visitors had withstood sustained pressure.

Javier Aguirre’s side completed the turnaround deep into first-half stoppage time when Serbia gifted Mexico the lead with an own goal, as a misplaced back pass from Stefan Bukinac rolled beyond goalkeeper Filip Stankovic and into the net.

😅🇷🇸 OTRO AUTOGOL DE SERBIA Y MEXICO YA ESTÁ GOLEANDO EN TOLUCA, JAJAJA. pic.twitter.com/PCUXqquwf0

— All Fútbol MX 🇲🇽 (@AllFutbolMX) June 5, 2026

Mexico increased their advantage 12 minutes after the break when Raúl Jiménez scored from close range after Julian Quinones’ effort struck the post and rebounded off the Fulham striker into the net.

The hosts made it 4-1 in the 72nd minute when Adem Avdic turned Alexis Vega’s corner into his own net, before Luis Chavez completed the rout with a superb long-range strike just before the 90-minute mark.

Fireworks lit up the Nemesio Diez stadium at the final whistle as Mexico signed off their World Cup preparations in style ahead of next Thursday’s opener against South Africa of the World Cup they are co-hosting with the US and Canada.

Trump met with:

• GM CEO Mary Barra;
• Ford Motor senior executive Andrew Frick;
• top officials with the National Automobile Dealers Association and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation; along with
• Republican senator Bernie Moreno, a former auto dealer.

Ford confirmed it took part in the meeting, while the auto groups declined to comment. GM did not respond to a request for comment.

“We had the auto industry in yesterday. They don’t want people to fix their car. I said, ‘That’s strange!’ They have a thing; nobody’s allowed to fix their car,” Trump said.

The auto industry has sparred with independent repair shops and other groups for years over the ability to repair new vehicles. The US auto service market is worth about $200bn (about R3.26-trillion) annually.

Legislation passed by a US House of Representatives committee last week would write into law existing industry memorandums of understanding and would give the Federal Trade Commission authority to enforce the agreements.

The auto alliance, which represents nearly all major automakers, said it supported the proposal and noted 75% of post-warranty vehicle repair work happens at independent shops. The group said in 2014 automakers committed to making all repair instructions, tools and diagnostic codes readily available to dealers and independent repairers.

Many lawmakers and independent repair shops say more is needed and want Congress to pass separate legislation to ensure vehicle owners have access and can share information necessary for repairs, including diagnostic data.

Proposed legislation would require vehicle manufacturers to give owners and independent repair shops access to vehicle data related to diagnostics, repair, calibration and recalibration.

A number of lawmakers argue that by restricting access to data, automakers can raise prices and independent repair shops must spend hefty sums to get access to repair software.

The auto dealers group opposes the legislation, saying it would enable aftermarket parts manufacturers to reverse-engineer auto parts and produce “knockoffs”, and argues it gives insurance companies more power to influence repair decisions.

Reuters

Operating profit shows how much money the core business is making before interest and tax. It strips away many accounting and financing factors and reveals whether the retailer is running its stores efficiently and profitably.

The group on Friday reported an increase of 4.3% in operating profit, meaning it generated about R16.5m in operating profit every day over the 52-week period to end-March. Revenue increased 4.2% to R42.7bn. Retail sales rose 4.3% to R41.1bn, slightly ahead of the broader retail sector’s growth of 4.0%, it said.

The retailer also improved its gross profit margin by 70 basis points to 41.2%, despite what it described as a highly promotional trading environment. Normalised diluted headline earnings per share increased 8%.

Mr Price declared a final shareholder payout of 592.8c per share and maintained its dividend payout ratio at 63%.

“I am very proud of how our team has responded to the volatility experienced this year. The agility of our operating model and the strength of our value retailing DNA have enabled operating leverage in a challenging retail environment,” said CEO Mark Blair.

Mr Price opened 196 new stores during the year, taking its total footprint to 3,182 stores across 15 trading chains. The group plans to open about 180 more stores in South Africa during the current financial year.

Growth was led by the telecoms business, where retail sales increased 10.3%. The apparel division, which contributes nearly 80% of group retail sales, grew 4.2%, while the homeware segment increased sales by 3.8%.

Mr Price said customers remained focused on value. Cash purchases accounted for 89.4% of retail sales, while more than half of online orders were collected in stores.

The group said its value-focused model helped it outperform the broader retail market during the year.

“We are confident in our ability to perform across economic cycles while continuing to deliver value to our customers,” said Blair.

Mr Price said it has also completed its acquisition of European discount retailer NKD after year-end. Transaction-related costs linked to the deal affected reported earnings, though the group said underlying performance remained strong.

The group warned rising oil prices and renewed inflation pressures linked to the conflict involving Iran could weigh on consumers and businesses.

Meanwhile, trading in April was challenging as consumer confidence weakened, but conditions improved during May and early June, the group said.

“There is an underlying optimism about South Africa’s long-term prospects, and we remain positive about our business’s ability to continue performing strongly. However, the conflict in Iran has brought uncertainty to the short-term and we are focused on ensuring we manage the impacts and continue to deliver value to our loyal customers,” the CEO said.

Securing a 10-year extension through 2037 is a defining moment for the Las Vegas Grand Prix and a reflection of the strength of our local partnerships.

Emily Prazer, Las Vegas Grand Prix president & CEO

The floodlit Saturday night race, which features drivers racing along the Nevada city’s famed Strip at more than 320km/h, is one of three US rounds on the F1 calendar — with Austin and Miami — and first hosted a grand prix in 2023.

Austin, Texas, has a contract to 2034 and Miami until 2041.

“We are thrilled that Formula One will continue racing in Las Vegas for many years to come,” said the Liberty Media-owned sport’s chief executive Stefano Domenicali in a statement ahead of the weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.

“Since its debut in 2023, the event has been extraordinary, rapidly establishing itself as a premier destination for great racing, world-class entertainment, global business leaders, A-list celebrities and influencers.

“We always believed that Las Vegas would become a cornerstone of our presence in the US, and this extension, together with the success of recent years, reinforces our long-term commitment to this important market.”

Formula One said the grand prix had delivered $3.2bn (about R52.15bn) in cumulative economic impact for Southern Nevada since its debut, with all three races to date sold out. Last year’s three-day attendance was officially 300,000.

Last year the race generated $43m in state and local tax revenue, as well as contributing more than $2m to nonprofit organisations.

“Securing a 10-year extension through 2037 is a defining moment for the Las Vegas Grand Prix and a reflection of the strength of our local partnerships,” said Las Vegas Grand Prix president and CEO Emily Prazer.

Las Vegas Grand Prix Inc, Clark County officials and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) have all committed to the race’s long-term future.

LVCVA president Steve Hill hailed a “major moment” for both the race and city.

“As the spotlight of the world turns to Las Vegas, the event continues to reinforce our evolution as a premier sports and entertainment destination,” he said.

Reuters

Revenue generated by the world’s major auto groups rose by 2% in the first quarter, with Japanese and US manufacturers leading the trend, according to an analysis published on Friday.

German carmakers, by contrast, saw a 4% decline.

“The entire German automotive industry is undergoing a profound structural transformation,” EY sector specialist Constantin Gall said, citing:

• losses in key markets like the US and China;
• costly overcapacity;
• high software investments; and
• the slow ramp-up of electric mobility.

The Iran crisis adds to uncertainty, with higher fuel prices and inflation expected to dampen demand in Europe.

This means German carmakers can expect the decline to continue, Gall said, adding: “2026 will be another crisis year for the automotive industry.”

Reuters

Video courtesy of SABC

TimesLIVE

This is according to Prof Axel A Weber, president of the Centre for Financial Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt and former president of the Deutsche Bundesbank, who delivered the inaugural Tito Mboweni Memorial Lecture in Cape Town on Thursday.

With the support of the Mboweni family, the lecture was launched by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

Mboweni, a seasoned politician whose career highlights include being democratic South Africa’s first labour minister, the first black SARB governor and championing Operation Vulindlela as finance minister, died in 2024.

Weber said a report he co-authored for the G7 economies warns that the global economy is once again threatened by deep structural imbalances, excessive current account surpluses and deficits, weak investments, industrial overcapacity, high debt levels and declining international solidarity.

“We argue in our report that imbalances fuel trade tensions, that financial instability helps to push protectionist pressures, and that geopolitical fragmentation is a threat that is real for the global economy.”

The lecture comes while the US has been at the centre of two of the sharpest global inflationary pressures, not least of which is its ongoing war with Iran and a raft of unilateral tariffs imposed on economies worldwide, including strategic geopolitical allies and trade partners.

We argue in our report that imbalances fuel trade tensions, that financial instability helps to push protectionist pressures, and that geopolitical fragmentation is a threat that is real for the global economy.

Prof Axel A Weber

Weber said he, as an economist, authored the report that advocated co-ordinated multilateral responses rather than unilateral trade wars or economic coercion.

“Our recommendations include stronger international policy co-ordination, increased domestic demand in surplus countries, fiscal consolidation in deficit countries, renewed productivity investments, strengthened IMF surveillance and reforms of global governance when it comes to trade.”

Weber said that during his time as governor of the SARB, Mboweni repeatedly warned against fiscal laxity, inflationary pressures and the dangers of excessive external vulnerability.

“He understood that emerging economies are often the first casualties when global liquidity tightens and when geopolitical tensions disrupt and trade and capital flows get intermediated and disrupted.

“These themes strongly resonate with me, and you will find that they are also strongly embedded in a recent report of the G7 economies, a group of four economists, as a memo on global imbalances submitted to the French presidency for the meeting that will happen later this year in Libya.”

He said the US is a huge exporter of digital and financial services and a recipient of global capital flows, but that it is critical to understand the dynamics that, overall, the balance of payments will always be balanced.

“It’s the disequilibria in parts of that balance of payment that cause the problem. And in my view, these might not be the underlying complete source of global imbalances.

“These sectoral imbalances are much harder to correct and will take much longer. So we should start now, given that we’re heading in the wrong direction and we’re picking up speed in that.”

Weber said that Mboweni understood earlier than many that South African economic destiny could never be separated from the health of the global economy and that he consistently argued that macroeconomic stability, institutional credibility and international co-operation were indispensable for sustainable development.

More than a business series, Capitec’s insightful thought leadership video series positions itself as a reflection on the systems that shape everyday life, from banking halls and digital infrastructure to public services and identity itself.

In Episode 2, host Koshiek Karan sits down with Eugene Vivier, head: Card at Capitec, for a conversation that moves beyond finance and into the philosophy of service.

What emerges is not simply a discussion about systems and logistics, but a broader meditation on intentionality, on what it means to design institutions around human beings rather than forcing people to adapt to institutions.

At the centre of the episode is Capitec’s evolving partnership with the Department of Home Affairs and the rollout of Smart ID services within selected branches. Yet the real story lies in the tension behind innovation itself.

Vivier reflects on initially declining an early proposal because it disrupted the carefully considered ergonomic and operational flow of branch design.

It is a subtle but revealing moment. Transformation, the episode suggests, should not happen recklessly. Effective innovation requires confidence in one’s systems, patience in execution, and collaboration rooted in mutual understanding.

What makes the conversation compelling is its grounding in lived South African realities. Millions remain excluded from essential services because they do not possess secure identification documents.

The episode explores how accessibility to documentation is inseparable from dignity, affecting everything from healthcare and education to employment and banking security. In this context, technology becomes less about convenience and more about citizenship.

Thematically, Bank on it continues to position leadership not as spectacle, but as stewardship. The episode repeatedly returns to the idea of branches acting as enablers rather than replacements for public services.

There is an awareness that meaningful change often happens quietly, in branch layouts, engineering prototypes, rural accessibility planning, and the collective labour of teams moving in the same direction.

By the episode’s close, what lingers is not the scale of the rollout or the statistics themselves, but a deeper emotional current, the belief that systems, when designed with care, can genuinely change lives.

In a media landscape saturated with disruption narratives, Bank on it offers something more thoughtful, a story about people building structures that work, in a human way.

Watch the full episode (above) to explore how Capitec is redefining leadership, trust, and growth in South Africa’s banking sector.

About ‘Bank on it’

Bank on it brings together senior Capitec leadership, leading voices across the financial ecosystem, and inspiring entrepreneurs in honest, insightful conversations.

Each episode delivers expert perspectives and practical, actionable insights to help viewers better understand and navigate today’s evolving financial landscape.

Many episodes also offer a closer look at Capitec’s inner workings and how its client-centric approach to innovation is making banking simpler, more accessible, and more affordable for all.

New episodes premiere on Business Day TV (DStv Channel 412). Episodes are also available on the dedicated Bank on it hub on the Business Day website, and on the Capitec website and YouTube channel.

This article was sponsored by Capitec.

“Major-General Shibiri was found guilty of misconduct relating to conduct that brought the organisation into disrepute, including associating himself with a known criminal,” national police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said.

Shibiri was named in the Madlanga commission for his close ties to tenderpreneur and murder accused Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala.

Another allegation against Shibiri is that after detective Michael Tau was arrested for the assassination of engineer Armand Swart, he summoned the investigating officers to his office.

It is alleged that during the meeting Shibiri asked them not to oppose Tau’s bail application and told them about three envelopes being prepared for the investigators, the prosecutor and the magistrate.

Shibiri denied any wrongdoing when he appeared before the commission. He said he had been brought under suspicion as a result of “misinformation and incorrect public impressions”.

TimesLIVE

The recalls affect 4,858 Toyota vehicles and 1,667 Lexus vehicles sold nationally. The affected vehicles are Toyota Crown Land Cruiser 300, Land Cruiser Prado, RAV4 and BZ4X, which were made available for sale between 2022 and 2025.

Lexus is recalling the following models: Lexus ES, GX, LC500, LX500/700, LX600/500d, NX, RX, RZ and LUX vehicles. The affected vehicles were sold between 2021 and 2025.

The vehicles are equipped with a parking assist electronic control unit (ECU), which forms part of the panoramic view monitor system that displays the rear-view camera image. As a result, drivers may not have a clear view of the area behind the vehicle, increasing the risk of a collision or accident during a backing event.

The supplier identified that the software in the parking assist ECU may cause the rear-view image to briefly freeze when reverse gear is selected shortly after the vehicle is started. In some instances, the rear-view image may fail to display entirely.

Consumers who own the affected vehicles are urged to take their vehicles to any authorised Toyota or Lexus dealership for inspection. A necessary software update or repair will be carried out at no cost to the consumer.

The car is intended as a halo model showcasing the brand’s Formula One-derived technology and new design direction. It combines F1-inspired hybrid technology with the most powerful drivetrain yet fitted to a production Audi.

The Nuvolari is powered by a plug-in hybrid drivetrain combining a mid-mounted 4.0l twin-turbo V8 with three electric motors. Audi quotes a total system output of 736kW, which is managed by a torque vectoring four-wheel drive system called Quattro Predictive Ride.

With quoted performance figures of 0-100km/h in 2.6 seconds and a top speed exceeding 350km/h, the Nuvolari is positioned firmly among the elite performance cars from Ferrari, McLaren and Lamborghini. Audi doesn’t quote a total torque figure, but the combustion engine delivers 730Nm on its own and revs to a heady 10,000rpm.

The Nuvolari shares its basic architecture with the Lamborghini Temerario but receives significant Audi-specific development. Designed for lightweight construction and high torsional rigidity, the car combines proven Audi Space Frame technology with a carbon exterior, a first for Audi.

Its track-attacking prowess is enhanced by active aerodynamics with a drag-reduction system, F1-inspired energy deployment and regeneration strategies, and a carbon-ceramic braking system.

There are four drive settings selected via a steering wheel-mounted dial, including an E-Hybrid all-electric mode for short-distance use.

The Nuvolari rides on 21-inch wheels with Bridgestone Potenza race tyres measuring 255/35 at the front and 325/30 at the rear.

The two-seater derives its active aerodynamics from F1 to balance drag and downforce, with an active rear wing that has three settings: Closed, Low Downforce (LD) and High Downforce (HD).

The Nuvolari is the first production Audi to feature the new design language introduced by new styling boss Massimo Frascella. It draws inspiration from the striking Audi Concept C all-electric sports car concept unveiled in Milan in September.

The mid-engine layout defines the proportions, resulting in a monolithic volume, a powerful stance, and a strong presence, said Audi. The exterior is characterised by Audi’s new signature colour Titanium, a paint also used on the Audi Concept C and the Audi Formula 1 race car.

The interior has a reduced architecture that concentrates all controls on essential functions and positions them directly within the driver’s field of view. Lightweight seats with a carbon fibre structure complement the driver-orientated interior concept.

Audi will build only 499 Nuvolari examples worldwide, with deliveries beginning in the first half of 2027. European pricing starts at about €600,000 (around R11.3m before taxes and duties).

Rather than reviving the R8 badge, Audi chose the car’s name in honour of legendary racing driver Tazio Nuvolari, who competed for Auto Union, one of Audi’s predecessor companies, during the 1930s.

Business Day

Like his Barcelona predecessor Lionel Messi he draws comparisons to, the Spanish prodigy seems set to dominate world football for the coming 15 years. The 2026 World Cup could well be the springboard to that.

At 18, the Barcelona star has just helped the Catalan club lift their third La Liga title in succession, capping their rejuvenation after a rebuilding phase that saw them go dry in the league from their last triumph in 2018-19 to their next in 2022-23.

Fascinatingly, as a baby, long before there was any inkling Lamal might be Messi’s successor as world’s best footballer, the infant was once photographed in the arms of and also being bathed by the Argentinian great. The photo, by an Associated Press freelancer, resurfaced when Lamal’s father reposted it on Instagram in 2024. It had been taken after the family won a Unicef raffle held in their town of Mataró, with the prize “to have their picture taken at the Camp Nou with a Barça player”, photographer Joan Monfort told AP.

Roughly a decade-and-a-half later Messi was asked at a World Cup advertisement launch who he believes the best player of the next generation is. “It would be Lamine. No doubt about it: for me, he is the best,” he answered.

Born to immigrant-origin parents — a Moroccan-origin father and Equatorial Guinean mother — Lamal grew up in Rocafonda, a working class neighbourhood in Mataró. His paternal grandmother famously snuck onto a bus to gain entry from Morocco to Spain. After his parents split when he was three he spent his time between his mother’s home in Granollers and father’s in Mataró, honing his skills in small-sided games on concrete squares.

From being spotted for his extraordinary dribbling and spatial skills from just six, Lamal has shattered age group records progressing at Barça’s famed La Masia academy after joining at seven, then at senior level. He played just seven minutes of one game in their 2022-23 La Liga title campaign, but in doing so became Barcelona’s youngest player (15 years, 9 months, 16 days), then the youngest La Liga scorer (16 years, 2 months, 25 days), youngest to reach 100 appearances and this year the youngest three-time champion.

He is Spain’s youngest player and scorer, debuting at 16 years and 57 days and scoring in a 7-1 Euro 2024 qualifying win against Georgia in September 2023. Helping Spain win their first major title since being world champions in South Africa in 2010, Lamal became youngest European Championship scorer in the semifinal against France, easily taking Euro 2024’s Best Young Player award. At 17 he became the youngest Ballon D’Or nominee in 2024 and youngest runner-up at 18 to France’s Ousmane Dembélé in 2025.

• Age: 18
• Club: Barcelona
• Previous clubs: None
• Previous World Cups: None
• International caps (goals): 25 (6)
• Club honours (wins only): Barcelona: La Liga (3) 2022-23, 2024-25, 2025-26; Copa del Rey (1) 2024-25; Supercopa de España (2) 2025, 2026
• International honours: UEFA European Championship (1) 2024; UEFA Nations League runner-up (1) 2024–25

Bonitas is South Africa’s second-largest open scheme, with 750,000 beneficiaries, making the switch in administration companies the biggest the industry has seen yet.

Bonitas has blamed its members’ woes on its previous administrator, Medscheme, which in turn has pointed the finger at the new service providers, Momentum Health and Private Health Administrators (PHA). Medscheme and Bonitas are already mired in conflict, as Medscheme took Bonitas to court last year over its planned change in administrators, alleging tender irregularities.

Earlier this week dozens of Bonitas members took to social media to air their complaints, many of which centred on distressing delays and a lack of response to authorisation requests after the new service providers took over on June 1. Medical schemes require members to obtain prior approval for some planned procedures and hospital admissions, as well as costly tests and treatment.

Bonitas principal officer Lee Callakoppen blamed Medscheme for the disarray, saying it has handed over an unexpected backlog of more than 10,000 outstanding matters. The backlog includes queries about claims, authorisations that had not been granted, savings refunds and affected members, brokers and healthcare providers, said Bonitas. Anomalies in historical member data compound the challenges, it said.

“Teams are working around the clock to resolve issues and get to normal service levels,” he said.

Bonitas anticipate the backlog will be cleared by Monday, he said.

PHA CEO Ayanda Mbuli said the company received hospital authorisation data files later than agreed and an unexpectedly large volume of unresolved matters. PHA, which provides managed care and hospital authorisation services, received more than 7,000 open authorisation and case management items on May 30, with a further 7,000-plus cases handed over on June 1, she said. For a scheme the size of Bonitas, PHA would normally expect 1,700 such queries a day, she said.

“While significant progress has already been made, the volume of cases means that resolution is an ongoing process. We continue to monitor volumes daily, prioritise urgent clinical matters and adjust resources where necessary to accelerate the clearance of the backlog,” she said.

Medscheme hit back, saying it warned Bonitas against opting for a clean break, with a final service cut off on May 29. “Typically a proper wind-down would involve both parties working in conjunction to resolve queries,” it said.

Medscheme said it has provided daily query volume updates to Bonitas and the new service providers from May 25-29 to allow for adequate planning. There was no backlog, and the numbers Bonitas referred to were normal business volumes, it said.

“If the new providers were not adequately capacitated to handle known volumes, that is a matter between them and Bonitas. Medscheme has fulfilled all [its agreed] obligations,” it said.

Momentum Health chief marketing officer Damian McHugh said switching a scheme of Bonitas’ size from one administrator to another is a huge undertaking, and “teething problems” are to be expected. Momentum Health has 18 client schemes, including Bonitas, covering a total of 3.96-million lives.

He acknowledged the anxiety caused by unresolved queries and emphasised that staff are working hard to minimise the impact of the transition on Bonitas members.

Medscheme, which was Bonitas’ administrator for 43 years, took legal action against the scheme over its decision to change service providers last year. It has asked the court to interdict Bonitas from implementing its contracts with Momentum Health and PHA pending the outcome of a forensic investigation by the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) into an administration contract Bonitas previously awarded PHA for its low-income option Boncap.

CMS, the industry regulator, has encouraged schemes to review long-standing administration contracts. In a recent industry circular, it expressed concern about the risks of “evergreen” deals. It said such contracts might not be regularly assessed to ensure they offered value for money, weakened scheme governance because administrators might have undue influence over the board of trustees and potentially restricted new market entrants.

CMS spokesperson Stephen Monamodi said the regulator does not have a view on the situation at Bonitas, as it does not know the extent, nature or cause of the problems. “We have reached out to Bonitas to obtain the details,” he said.

In general, moving administrators should not affect member cover if the former administrator handed over all the information required and the new administrator onboarding was performed meticulously, in line with the law and the administration contract, he said.

Correction: June 5 2026

An earlier headline for this story incorrectly said Bonitas blamed momentum for the backlog.

Story audio is generated using AI

The evolution of cyber attacks over decades is the focus in this edition of the Business Day Spotlight.

Host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Tony Anscombe, chief security evangelist at ESET.

At the outset, the conversation reflects on how much the cyber landscape has shifted over the past two decades.

What used to be highly disruptive, “badge of honor” style viruses ― like Pac-Man running across a PC screen ― have evolved into highly sophisticated, profit-driven cybercrime.

Today, the main driver is monetisation through ransomware, digital fraud and targeted scams.

Furthermore, the threat landscape is increasingly influenced by geopolitical tensions, where nation-state actors and aligned groups utilise cyber warfare as an active weapon alongside physical conflict.

Anscombe also addresses the dual nature of AI in the present environment.

Companies such as ESET have actually been utilising elements of AI ― such as neural networks ― since the late 1990s to detect complex threats.

In a defensive capacity, AI is deeply integrated into security systems to analyse massive amounts of data alongside human intelligence, though accuracy is critical to avoid disruptive “false positives”.

While AI itself isn’t independently executing attacks, malicious actors are leveraging AI tools to drastically lower the barrier to entry.

Anscombe says scammers can now easily use AI to write sophisticated phishing emails, instantly launch deceptive websites, or even generate unique malicious scripts tailored to a specific target’s environment.

The discussion outlines how cybersecurity has evolved; the use of AI by both defenders and attackers; shifts in approach to cyber defence; and examples of major attacks.

Join the discussion:

Producer: Demi Buzo

Business Day Spotlight is an Arena Podcasts Production.

For more episodes, subscribe to Simplecast

There is a common assumption that an estate plan works simply because it exists. There is a will in place, a trust may have been created, beneficiaries are named, and life cover has been arranged. On paper, everything appears structured and responsible.

However, estate planning is not a paperwork exercise, and it is not defined by the existence of documents. It is defined by whether the system holds together when a family is under pressure, and that is where most plans begin to break down.

This failure is rooted in what can be described as the estate planning illusion — the belief that structure creates control. A plan is put in place at a specific time and left unchanged, while life continues to evolve around it. Assets grow, businesses are expanded or sold, families change shape, relationships shift and tax exposure moves.

New accounts are opened, others are forgotten, and over time the gap between the plan and reality widens. What appears to be a plan is often a snapshot of a moment that no longer exists.

When these plans fail it is rarely because the legal drafting is incorrect. The failure is behavioural, and it is a failure of co-ordination between people, assets and intent. Families avoid the conversations that define what the wealth is for, so expectations are never properly aligned.

Plans are treated as complete rather than evolving systems, which allows misalignment to build quietly over time. Liquidity is often misunderstood, leaving estates that appear substantial on paper but lack the cash required to meet obligations. This forces asset sales under pressure at exactly the wrong moment.

When these plans fail it is rarely because the legal drafting is incorrect. The failure is behavioural, and it is a failure of co-ordination between people, assets and intent. Families avoid the conversations that define what the wealth is for, so expectations are never properly aligned.

Complexity accumulates as structures are added without a clear design, creating fragmentation rather than clarity. Responsibility is also frequently outsourced, with the assumption advisers or executors will ensure everything works, when in reality they are left interpreting rather than executing if the underlying plan lacks coherence.

In many cases even basic information such as where assets are held or how structures interact is not easily accessible to those who need it most, which further delays decision-making and increases the risk of costly mistakes.

When co-ordination breaks, the consequences are not theoretical. Decisions slow down at exactly the moment they need to be made quickly. Emotions begin to dominate. Family members interpret intent differently, and spouses are left trying to navigate complexity amid grief.

What should have been a structured transition becomes disorder. The assets may still exist, but everything around them starts to fracture, often creating tension that lasts long after the estate itself has been settled.

The shift in estate planning is not from more documents to better drafting; it is from structure to co-ordination. A working estate plan is not defined by how sophisticated it looks, but by whether it can operate without you.

That requires clarity, where the structure and intent can be understood by the people who will implement it. It requires deliberate liquidity so the estate can function without destructive timing decisions. It requires consolidation, where assets, policies and structures are visible in one coherent view rather than scattered across platforms and advisers.

It requires alignment so investment strategy and estate design operate as a single system. It requires communication because if the family cannot explain the plan in their own words the plan is not complete.

Most estate plans fail because they are built to exist, not to function. Legacy is not protected by documents but by clarity, liquidity and communication working together under real conditions. If those elements are not aligned, what exists is not a plan but an assumption, and assumptions fail first when reality arrives.

• Marrian is director at independent wealth management firm InvestSense.

This ancient tradition of papal teaching from the head of the Catholic Church was virtually unknown until Pope Leo XIV issued an encyclical last month. He preaches against “a new Tower of Babel” in the form of AI, among other pleas for people to be nicer and kinder to each other.

It is both a characteristic and a flaw that the most important debate about this significant new technology and its societal impact is being led by the chief of an ancient religion that once vilified science.

But it takes a personage of Pope Leo’s standing to remind everyone of the true perils of this new age of automation: that what truly defines us is our humanity and we must protect it.

His encyclical comes at just the right time for a new technology that is expected to profoundly change the way we work and its impact on our lives.

“In the era of AI, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanisation, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human,” said the man who is the spiritual leader of 1.4-billion Catholics.

“I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good so that humanity will never lose its beauty,” he added in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (magnificent humanity), which has deep and meaningful thoughts about the impact of this new wave of AI automation.

Notably, Leo took his naming inspiration from Pope Leo XIII, who published an equally significant encyclical called Rerum Novarum on May 15 1891, 135 years ago, about the industrial revolution, which itself wrought major changes on the nature of work.

Leo quotes Pope Francis from 2015 that “never has humanity had so much power over itself”. Just over a decade later, that previous papal admonishment is even more stark. Google and Facebook have amassed vast surveillance capitalism networks that literally earn money off people from just surfing the web or using their apps.

We are all tiny batteries ― like the ones that keep the lights on in The Matrix ― fuelling the vast networks of programmatic advertising. AI is only going to supercharge that. Witness the widespread glut of AI slop already.

“Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home; but it can also divide, exclude and generate new forms of injustice,” writes Pope Leo. “Technology in and of itself is not a solution to humanity’s problems, just as it is not inherently evil. In practice, however, technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.”

Right now, “those” are Silicon Valley elites such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, with super-voting rights in their respective companies so their authority goes unchallenged.

They are not elected or accountable to a board or any higher power, yet they are in charge of vast tracks of how the world communicates. More than 3-billion people use Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp every month, according to Statista.

Musk’s renamed Twitter has far fewer users at 557-million, but it is arguably an equally powerful communication platform, which he controls outright. He has integrated it with his own xAI chatbot, which has spewed Nazi propaganda and called itself “MechaHitler”. Controversially, it allowed thousands of women and children to be digitally undressed.

If ever Pope Leo is warning against “the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it” this is it. He specifically calls out the “culture of power” in AI. When such power is “concentrated in the hands of a few”, he rightly argues, it tends to become “opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted forms of development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities”.

Look no further than the disturbing behaviour of two of the major protagonists in the AI industry, Musk and Sam Altman, who have failed to cover themselves in glory of any kind in the shameful lawsuit bought by Musk against OpenAI.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s own attempts at policy regulation have been, well, haphazard. In an embarrassment to communications minister Solly Malatsi he had to withdraw his department’s own policy document because of AI “hallucinations”.

Standing next to the pope last week – it’s worth noting – was Christopher Olah, a cofounder of Anthropic, which this week announced it was filing for an initial public offering (IPO) after a new $65bn funding round that gives it a $965bn valuation. By overtaking OpenAI, Anthropic is now the world’s most valuable start-up.

The pope also warns that “as with every major technological shift, AI tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise and access to data”.

He argues that ownership of data “cannot be left solely in private hands” but must be appropriately regulated. Taking aim at the big programmatic advertising companies and data brokers, the pope writes: “Data is the product of many contributors and should not be treated as something to be sold off or entrusted to a select few”.

I have long believed the profits of programmatic advertising giants such as Facebook and Google are a new form of digital slavery ― where the innocent effort of people surfing the web (including teenagers) are commercialised into extraordinary profits. When Instagram, TikTok and YouTube earn money off children watching short videos, is that not the definition of child labour?

Without putting words in the pontiff’s mouth, he seems to agree. Pope Leo writes at length about “breaking the chains of new forms of slavery”, saying our current “distorted view of the human person is reflected today in various forms of servitude directly linked to the digital economy”.

He reminds us that “a significant part of the digital economy’s functioning relies on the silent work of millions of people engaged in essential yet largely unseen activities,” including content moderation, often involving disturbing material.

Trafficking, often of minors, by criminal networks also uses the messaging and payment apps “within the same digital circuits that support much of the global economy”.

Today, “colonialism assumes new forms,” he adds. “It no longer dominates only bodies but appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information.”

• Shapshak is editor-in-chief of Stuff.co.za.

Vincent Tseka, team manager of Bafana, should voetsek.

For Tseka is a vanisher of visas and a blind spot for bookings, whether they be yellow cards or training venues. He is, by all accounts, great at fetching ice during games, which could feature prominently on the curriculum vitae he may be compiling for his post-World Cup job search.

Tseka’s contract terminates when Bafana’s World Cup adventure ends. He should be followed out of the door by Danny Jordaan, but, sadly, Safa’s president-for-life and his acolytes have installed revolving doors at their headquarters which they keep well-oiled and spinning hard. If “hanging on” was a sport, South Africa would be Olympic and world champions. Never was so little done for so many by so few.

From bloated team entourages at the Olympics through the nonsense of “superfans” and politicians on freebies, national teams and events attract the great unemployable like flies.

I conducted a question-and-answer lunch with former Spurs and England player Gary Mabbutt at Pirates Sports Club last Friday. He reminded me of the 2010 World Cup announcement in Zurich in May 2004 when he had been an unpaid global ambassador for the bid.

Most of the bid party stayed at a big hotel in the hills of Zurich. The hotel lobby and bar were packed with South Africans and others the night after the bid had been won. There had been a chartered flight to take them and us media to Switzerland and home.

On the way back to OR Tambo, I got talking to the guy next to me. His job? He was a driver for Safa in Joburg. What had he been doing in Zurich? He shrugged. “Nothing. They brought most of us from the office.”

Fifa are an organisation of hangers-on always ready for a selfie. After South Africa had finished their presentation, Ed Griffiths, the former Sarfu CEO, journalist and writer of bid books and autobiographies, told me: “Here’s a little scoop for you. After every other one of the presentations, the Fifa executives have had questions. After South Africa, all the delegates queued up for photographs with Madiba and to shake his hand.”

There was a time when the SABC had money to burn and they were not afraid of putting a torch to it. At the 2004 Olympics in Athens I saw a woman with official Olympic accreditation that marked her as a broadcaster with the SABC walking into the International Broadcast Centre with plastic packets of biscuits and snacks. An SABC reporter told me she had been flown over as the “tea lady”. I hoped it was a joke, but, sadly …

As their athletes flew in economy, Sascoc officials always turned left to business when travelling abroad. It was written into their rules that board officials and others flew business. It was — and may still be — seen as a reward for doing so much for sport. Athletes have complained to no avail.

In Beijing, Oscar Pistorius criticised Sascoc for poor planning ahead of the Paralympics. Again, he and the athletes flew economy class; the team kit was not ready, and the tokens to ensure they could receive drinks had not been organised.

Sascoc were furious and issued a statement condemning Pistorius, saying he had signed a contract with them that included a code of conduct clause, and they would be enforcing it. It turned out they had forgotten to get Pistorius to actually sign the thing.

Safa has a trickle-down economy when it comes to passing the blame. The infighting and factions in the board, a president up on fraud and theft charges, have created a gang of shrugs, where each mishap, each scandal is brushed off the shoulders of the bosses and down the line.

Jordaan’s reply to the visa mess was: “So, it’s not the first time that they have had these problems. But we believe that they will use that as extra motivation to do well.”

That, Danny boy, is the problem. It was not the first time. It won’t be the last. It is time for you to voetsek.

The PA celebrated the move as proof that its influence was growing. Jacobs became one of the party’s most prominent public faces. He attacked the DA. He defended the PA. He explained why he had left. He explained why he had joined. He explained why voters should believe he had found a new political home.

Now he is back. In less than a year Jacobs has completed what can only be described as a political round trip. He left parliament. He became the PA’s Tshwane mayoral candidate. He served in the Johannesburg council. He then became the PA’s Cape Town mayoral candidate and moved to the Cape Town council. A few weeks ago he announced he would be returning to parliament. Now he is returning to the DA.

The story itself is remarkable. What is even more remarkable is what it reveals about the state of South African politics. Because the real question is not whether Jacobs was right to leave the DA. Nor is it whether he is right to return.

The real question is this: when was he telling the truth? Was he telling the truth when he criticised the PA while serving in the DA? Was he telling the truth when he criticised the DA while serving in the PA? Or is he telling the truth now that he has returned to the DA and once again finds himself criticising the PA?

The uncomfortable reality is that all three positions cannot simultaneously be true. At some point he was spinning. This is the problem with modern politics. Political parties have become extraordinarily sophisticated narrative machines. Their job is not necessarily to tell voters what is true. It is to persuade voters that whatever is politically convenient today has always been true.

One day a politician is presented as a traitor. The next day he is presented as a visionary. One day a political party is corrupt, incompetent and morally bankrupt. The next day it is a trusted coalition partner. One day a leader is celebrated as a statesman. The next day he is denounced as a danger to democracy.

Political parties have become extraordinarily sophisticated narrative machines. Their job is not necessarily to tell voters what is true. It is to persuade voters that whatever is politically convenient today has always been true.

The facts all too often change less than the narratives do. Every political party does it. The political spin machine never sleeps. When politicians move between parties, they often expose this contradiction more clearly than anyone else could. The statements remain on social media. The interviews remain online. The speeches remain on YouTube. The quotes remain in newspaper archives.

Voters can see the before and after. They can see politicians making arguments they once rejected. They can see parties embracing people they once condemned. They can see political enemies becoming political allies overnight.

Politicians often blame voter apathy on disengagement or ignorance. Perhaps the problem is simpler. Perhaps voters have simply become tired of being sold narratives that change every election cycle. Perhaps they have become sceptical of politicians who speak with absolute certainty today only to adopt the opposite position tomorrow.

The Jacobs saga reminds us that political parties are not neutral sources of information. They are political actors pursuing political objectives. Their communications departments exist to win support, shape perceptions and advance narratives. That is their job.

The lesson from the Jacobs saga is not that one politician is uniquely inconsistent or that one political party is uniquely dishonest. It’s that voters should never outsource their judgment to political parties or politicians.

Listen to what they say. Then compare it with what they said a year ago. Compare it with what they did. And then compare it with what happened. Because in South African politics, the spin is often the easiest thing to find. The truth usually requires a little more work.

• Roos is Business Day parliamentary reporter.

Growth in the digital infrastructure sector has been underpinned by the advent of cloud computing over the past decade and a half, presently benefitting from the demand created by the AI boom.

While in the past data processing was mainly done through data centres, new approaches by the likes of Oran Development Corporation (ODC) and Nvidia technology now enable mobile operators to integrate AI directly into the radio control loop, allowing cellphone towers to perform real-time computing tasks.

Rival MTN is among a group of investors, including Cisco, Nokia and AT&T that have backed ODC and its technology, underscoring the growing interest for alternatives to large data centre builds.

According to Taukobong, Telkom’s large trove of digital infrastructure puts it in a strong position to take advantage of the new trends.

In an interview with Business Day, he highlighted Sandton’s large concentration of banks and supermarkets to illustrate.

Demand in those ecosystems is for low latency, he said. Latency refers to the speed with which signals and data travel.

In Taukobong’s view, a key to cutting latency is boosting edge data centre capability. Unlike their large warehouse-sized counterparts, edge data centres are smaller facilities that bring computing closer to users to reduce the distances that data has to travel, in turn helping to cut latency.

“If you’re looking for [better] latency and therefore edge data centre capability, that’s what we believe in Telkom we have. Not only do we have the 10 data centres that we manage,” there is also “the legacy ecosystem, which was the old Telkom/Openserve switches”, said Taukobong.

“Within a 2km or 3km radius of this [Sandton] precinct, there are four or five of them, which is the ecosystem that will support [the] edge data infrastructure.

“What underpins that? Fibre and power. That is a future-proof ecosystem,” he said, referring to the fact that Telkom has South Africa’s largest network of fibre optic cable at more than 170,000km through its Openserve business.

This also comes while large data centre projects in the US and Europe are being scaled back.

While mobile operators contemplate a future of AI computing being done at cellphone towers, the likes of Elon Musk see a future in which data centres could be in the sky.

Musk sees an opportunity to turn his constellation of low Earth orbiting satellites, Starlink, into facilities that can also process data, thus reducing reliance on land-based facilities.

Whatever the case, “it’s not the massive 5GW data centres; it’s the distributed data ecosystem” that Telkom and others see as a real opportunity, Taukobong said.

‘Fibre connectivity’

“But before you get there, the first key driver is connectivity. Not microwave connectivity. Fibre connectivity. Even if you’re going to be building AI ecosystems in towers, what do you need for that? Fibre.”

In that Taukobong sees opportunity for Openserve, both for “last-mile” fibre to homes and businesses, as well as for backhaul, which connects cellphone towers to their core networks.

“So, we’re actually encouraged by people putting AI ecosystems in towers, because that means it’s an upsell for Openserve.”

Globally, there is a push for data centres to be built close to where most data originates. Data sovereignty and residency refer to the idea that information from local companies and governments does not have to leave the country’s borders to be processed.

The issue has grown in importance alongside the growth of cloud computing, where data is processed in large data centres that are often away from an organisation, in many cases in another country.

With much of the AI processing for platforms such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude being done “in the cloud”, discomfort among many nation-states has grown over where and how sensitive personal information is being processed.

In a bluntly worded joint statement, Business Unity South Africa president Mxolisi Mgojo, Business Leadership South Africa chair Adrian Gore and Business for South Africa steering committee chair Martin Kingston warned that the visible decline of Johannesburg, which accounts for about 16% of South Africa’s GDP, “undermines the national growth story at precisely the moment a more positive narrative is gaining credibility”.

“This is not a local political problem. It is a national economic emergency,” they said. “We are making this call now, ahead of local government elections, because the standards of governance the city requires cannot wait for another electoral cycle. Whoever forms the next administration will inherit an urgent, structural challenge.”

Business is already playing its part by funding support to departments working on local government reform as well as contributing to infrastructure repair, including potholes, traffic signals and inner-city maintenance, they said.

“These efforts are real but fragmented. We want to systematise, co-ordinate and scale them. We are prepared to deploy appropriate private sector resources into a programme of structured support for Johannesburg’s recovery, on the condition that we have a counterparty capable of governing scrupulously, delivering for the city, and being held to account.”

‘Broken city’

In an interview with Business Day TV this week, Helen Zille, the DA’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, said the city is so broken it would be difficult for any administration to turn it around without help from business.

“We’re … going to have to do a lot of public-private partnerships, especially in the trading services, because it’s going to be impossible to fix things without them and their investment,” she said.

Last month finance minister Enoch Godongwana met Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero to express his “serious concerns” about the city’s finances. That meeting came after a confidential letter in which the minister warned Morero to halt a controversial R10.3bn wage deal with municipal workers because the city was technically insolvent.

The letter, leaked by Zille, accused Johannesburg of violating municipal finance laws and revealed that the city owed creditors R25.2bn while having only R3.9bn in cash.

In Thursday’s statement, the business leaders noted that Johannesburg’s adjustment budget is unfunded, while its R8bn equitable share instalment for July — an unconditional transfer of nationally raised revenue to municipalities — is at risk because of the R10.3bn wage offer.

In addition, Eskom might suspend the supply of electricity to the city over an unpaid debt of R5.3bn.

“Johannesburg’s fiscal and governance crisis has been building for years. It is not a new or partisan issue, and the failures of the past decade have occurred under successive administrations and shifting coalition arrangements. What is new is the severity and urgency of the situation,” the business leaders said.

Morero has previously said his administration inherited an already damaged Johannesburg with deep-seated problems. In his state of the city address last month, he said his administration was willing to find an amicable solution with Eskom over its debt.

Morero also called on the Treasury, the public protector, and the Special Investigating Unit to look into the city’s finances and said that part of the solution for the city was guidance from the government on reforming and strengthening municipal trading entities.

The business leaders said Johannesburg’s capital expenditure has collapsed to 6% of its budget, while maintenance spending stands at 0.5% of asset value. Despite rates and service charges soaring 124% in real terms over the past 15 years, service quality has deteriorated sharply.

“The situation is not due to a lack of financial resources. Corruption, criminality and maladministration appear to be increasingly entrenched within elements of the city,” Mgojo, Gore and Kingston said in their statement.

Non-partisan stance

They stressed that their criticism was non-partisan.

“We are addressing this statement to all political parties — those currently in government in the city, those in opposition and those who will contest the upcoming local government elections. We are addressing it to the president and to the national GNU [government of national unity],” they said.

Parties contesting the elections scheduled for November 4 must provide specific, costed commitments on how to fix the city’s fiscal crisis, restore infrastructure and re-establish functional governance, they said, and urged the government to enforce consequence management if standards aren’t met.

Rise Mzansi Johannesburg mayoral hopeful Lukhona Mnguni applauded the statement as an accurate assessment of the city’s problems.

“The data presented by business is not in dispute and paints a terrifying picture of the dire state of Johannesburg. It is precisely because of this collapse that the sixth pillar of our campaign focuses entirely on anchoring a stable coalition,” Mnguni said.

“The recovery of Johannesburg cannot happen in a vacuum; it must be anchored in a multisectoral, multifaceted strategy that brings business, civil society, and communities together.”

Petshop Science, launched in 2021, has grown rapidly to 174 stores nationwide and continues to expand through digital channels, including its partnership with Checkers Sixty60 for same-day delivery.

The introduction of insurance-linked rewards adds a new layer to competition in the sector, as retailers look to lock in loyalty through services that go beyond food and pet supplies.

Valued at R10.4bn and growing 15.8% in 2025, the category is expanding quickly, but most pet owners remain highly price sensitive. According to Trade Intelligence’s inaugural “South African Pet FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) Landscape Report”, this divide is now defining how people shop for their pets.

The market researcher said most owners continue to spend cautiously despite the move towards premium products. One of the key dynamics shaping the market is the gap between consumer aspirations and affordability.

“The result is that while the emotional baseline is a preference for human-grade products, the financial baseline is highly price sensitive, forcing households to tighten their belts in other areas,” said Trade Intelligence.

Pet ownership remains widespread in South Africa, with an estimated 7.4-million dogs and 2-million cats, according to Stats SA data. However, according to Shoprite, only a small share of pets are covered by insurance, leaving many households exposed to unexpected veterinary costs.

Shoprite said it is now using its retail platform to close part of that gap by offering Xtra Savings members one month of free accidental pet cover of up to R10,000 for dogs or cats, provided they spend R1,000 or more in-store or via Sixty60 in a month.

According to Petshop Science, the initiative is designed to ease financial pressure on pet owners in emergencies.

“Pets are an important part of family life for millions of South Africans. When accidents happen, the last thing owners should have to worry about is how they will pay for emergency treatment. This partnership helps make accidental cover more accessible and gives pet parents greater peace of mind,” said Petshop Science GM Trevor Paxton.

The retailer also already offers standalone pet insurance products underwritten by Outsurance from as little as R69 a month, with existing policyholders eligible for a R50 discount on premiums for each qualifying month.

The move shows how retailers are increasingly expanding beyond traditional retail into services linked to pet health, loyalty programmes and financial protection, as they compete for share in a growing category.

The broader market is being shaped by strong emotional demand. Trade Intelligence research shows that pets are increasingly viewed as family members, particularly among younger consumers.

‘Part of the family’

“According to our research, over 98% of shoppers aged 24 and younger agree that pets are a part of their family,” Trade Intelligence research lead Caroline Short said.

This emotional connection has helped protect spending in the category, even as broader economic conditions remain tough. It also explains why the market continues to grow even with financial strain on households.

Retailers are intensifying competition in the space. The Trade Intelligence report shows that big grocery chains are expanding their presence through specialist pet stores and digital platforms, turning the category into an area of focus.

“As major retailers look for growth and value beyond the traditional store model, the pet category has emerged as one of the most dynamic and competitive spaces in retail,” said Short.

Shopping behaviour is also changing. According to Trade Intelligence, while supermarkets remain the main destination for pet food, online platforms and on-demand delivery services are gaining ground. Retailers are increasingly expected to meet consumers across multiple channels.

“At the most recent count, the tally is approaching the 350-store mark across the retailers, with all our majors underlining their intention to grow their specialist pet formats further,” said Short.

Inside the basket, buying patterns are also changing. Dry food remains the core purchase, but consumers are adding treats, wet food and fresh options on top, rather than replacing the main meal. This “base plus supplement” approach is helping drive growth across different product segments.

Ramaphosa and health minister Aaron Motsoaledi are due to launch lenacapavir in Secunda, Mpumalanga, on Friday. The shot has been hailed as a game-changer because it provides almost complete protection against HIV.

South Africa has the world’s biggest HIV epidemic, with an estimated 8-million people living with the disease and 170,000 new infections a year. Modelling by the HE2RO group at Wits University suggests about 2-million people in South Africa need to take lenacapavir each year to materially slow the rate of new HIV infections and end the pandemic by 2034.

However, South Africa is due to receive less than 975,000 doses of lenacapavir over the next two years. By April, 38,000 doses had arrived, but the rollout was delayed by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority’s (Sahpra’s) requirements for post-importation testing.

“We must ask why we are being asked to celebrate when South Africa’s rollout plan is unambitious, low-scale and in danger of being more about the pomp than the public health impact,” said the coalition of civil society organisations, which includes the Treatment Action Campaign, the Health Justice Initiative (HJI) and the African Alliance.

“The targets are too low, the population groups targeted in the short term are not broad enough, and the volumes from Gilead are minuscule,” said the organisations.

They criticised Gilead for not seeking an exemption to Sahpra’s testing requirements and not moving faster to enable South African pharmaceutical manufacturers to make generic copies of its drug. South Africa was the first African country to approve lenacapavir but has lagged behind other countries hard-hit by the disease in rolling out the drug.

And while Gilead has enabled the Medicines Patent Pool to award voluntary licences to several pharmaceutical manufacturers to make generic lenacapavir, it is limited to companies with the capacity to make the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) contained in the drug. Gilead recently softened this condition, opening the way for local pharmaceutical companies to apply via the South African National Aids Council for voluntary licences to make lenacapavir using imported APIs.

Tian Johnson from the African Alliance said South Africa has played a pivotal role in developing lenacapavir, and it is wrong for Gilead to wield so much power over access to the drug.

“Our communities participated in the research, our clinics hosted the trials, and our scientists helped produce the data. Yet we are still waiting for a Gilead to determine how much of the product we receive, when it arrives, and how quickly access can expand,” he said.

Motsoaledi told parliament on Thursday that the rollout will begin in three provinces, and will prioritise people at greatest risk of HIV infection. These include adolescent girls and women under the age of 25, sex workers, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and transgender people.

“We are actually in a position today to say we can eliminate HIV as a public health threat by 2030 — all we have to do is work hard,” he said in his budget vote debate speech in the National Council of Provinces.

The bank has been working on its digital assistant for a decade, starting in May 2016 with the launch of ChatBanking on Twitter, which allowed customers to check balances and buy airtime using a secure link to their social profile.

Since then, the platform has been improved, with Absa now working with Salesforce on the project.

This week, Absa announced it has renewed for another three years its long-standing collaboration with the Silicon Valley firm started by Marc Benioff.

This will support the bank’s “growing focus on AI, automation and real-time data insights to create more personalised and efficient banking experiences for customers”.

All this will be done through the bank’s AI chat agent “Abby”, which now operates on the Absa banking app and website, allowing customers to navigate the platforms through chat interactions as opposed to clicking through pages on the interface.

On the bank’s business banking website, the agent can support all 11 of South Africa’s official languages.

Read: Absa boss Kenny Fihla appointed chair of Banking Association SA

Over the three-year period, the partnership will focus on a number of technologies across the group, including Saleforce’s Agentforce, Data Cloud and Loyalty Cloud.

AI agents have taken off in popularity worldwide. While Absa has developed the tool over a decade, it is still confined to customer support, queries and navigating the bank’s online portal.

It differs from agentic banking that the likes of Visa are pushing.

A year ago, Visa, one of the world’s two major players providing card and payments services to all big South African banks, announced a new suite of technologies that will allow AI systems to make payments on behalf of human customers in e-commerce transactions.

This is part of a growing trend regarding AI-powered agents, known as agentic AI, taking on more tasks from human beings. For example, an agent that works like a personal assistant — making bookings, creating meetings, summarising notes and other important information.

For a bank, this includes AI agents that can handle customer queries, give financial advice, or even approve a credit or loan application.

Last year, Johnson Idesoh, group chief information and technology officer at Absa, said the bank was sceptical about giving AI agents such autonomy.

This was likely to change in the future, but more testing was needed for the full set of risks to pass the muster of South Africa’s highly regulated and often conservative banking industry.

“For now, we’ve taken a stance that we are not going to use these agentic AI solutions to make final decisions,” Idesoh told Business Day.

Absa has been a big customer for Salesforce in recent years.

The platform is now “deeply embedded” in Absa’s daily operations, with about 15,000 of its employees actively using it across business units, covering frontline teams and back-office operations.

“This renewed collaboration [with Salesforce] speaks to Absa’s continued focus on customer-centric, data-driven transformation and enables us to deliver on our promise of bringing possibilities to life for our customers across Africa,” said Thato Matolong, chief information officer for personal & private banking at Absa.

In 2016, the writing appeared on the wall in the clearest possible terms when the ANC lost control of Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

Since the 2014 general elections, the ANC has been losing between 10% and 15% of the vote in urban centres like Joburg in every election up to and including the 2024 national and provincial ballot.

Gauteng, the economic heartbeat of the country, told the party in no uncertain terms that the social contract was fraying. The party nodded, convened commissions, produced documents, but proceeded to govern as though nothing fundamental had changed.

It is that obstinacy that is the core problem. Not the losses themselves, but the ANC’s failure to learn from them. This year, once again, the ANC is leaving its candidate selection processes to the last minute.

Today the party faces a more complicated electoral terrain than ever before.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, once the great reform promise, is navigating a parliamentary impeachment inquiry over the Phala Phala farm scandal, a saga that has done measurable damage to the image of a leader who staked his entire brand on clean governance.

The ballot is more crowded than ever, with new and established opposition parties competing for precisely the constituencies where the ANC has bled support most visibly.

Youth unemployment sits at levels that constitute a structural emergency. And across municipalities from Limpopo to the Eastern Cape, “service delivery” remains a polite phrase for the organised absence of functioning government.

Against this backdrop the ANC has made two moves it is presenting as reform.

It has centralised mayoral appointments across more than 40 municipalities within the party’s national executive committee (NEC), attempting to impose quality control from the top on a candidate pipeline that has historically rewarded loyalty over competence.

It has also widened that pipeline, opening it to people outside the ranks of card-carrying party members.

Both decisions carry logic but may have arrived eight years too late.

Centralising mayoral selections within the NEC is an acknowledgement that branch-level deployment has been catastrophic.

The NEC is the same structure that presided over the catastrophe. Handing it more authority over municipal outcomes does not automatically change the incentives that produced bad choices in the first place.

It may simply move the accountability problem upward and make it less visible.

If the ANC is prepared to place capable non-members in positions of executive municipal authority, it signals at minimum an awareness that the party’s internal talent market is undersupplied.

The question is whether deployees outside the party structure will be empowered to actually govern or whether they will find themselves managing the same factional interference that has paralysed administrations in cities like Joburg for years.

The uncomfortable argument, one that will not be made in Luthuli House, is that the ANC may need to lose more ground before it loses enough comfort to genuinely reform.

Political parties, like most institutions, do not undertake painful structural change while they retain sufficient power to avoid it. The 2016 losses stung, but clearly they did not sting enough.

The 2021 national tally, which dropped the party below 46%, stung more. And if they are not careful, 2026 could see them relegated to also-rans.

Cape Fear ― Apple TV +

Robert De Niro’s gleefully demonic performance as villain Max Cady in Martin Scorsese’s Hitchcock-influenced 1991 screen adaptation of John D MacDonald’s novel, The Executioners, was terrifying. That version provides the inspiration for creator Nick Antosca’s limited series adaptation, executive produced by Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Amy Adams and Patrick Owen are Anna and Tom Bowden, successful lawyers and advocates for the rights of wrongfully convicted prisoners, while Javier Bardem is a chillingly slippery Max Cady.

Michael Jackson: The Verdict ― Netflix

Following Antoine Fuqua’s celebratory, Jackson-estate-approved biopic, Nick Green’s exhaustive three-part docuseries arrives to remind audiences what happened after the events depicted in Fuqua’s film. Drawing on interviews with jurors, lawyers, journalists and eyewitnesses, the series takes a deep dive into Jackson’s much-publicised and globally followed 2005 criminal trial when he faced allegations of molesting then 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at the pop icon’s Neverland ranch in 2003.

Peter Hujar’s Day ― Mubi.com

Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall sparkle in director Ira Sachs’ talk-heavy two-hander recreating a real-life interview between Hall’s writer Linda Rosenkrantz and Whishaw’s posthumously celebrated, pioneering gay photographer Peter Hujar. Set in New York City in December 1974, it’s a vivid, intelligent portrait of what Sachs has characterised as “about what it is to be an artist among artists in a city where no-one was making any money”.

A Band Called Death — Prime Video

Now an “oldie” but still a pivotal documentary in the annals of punk rock — directors Mark Christopher Corvino and Jeff Howlett’s 2012 documentary firmly placed the three African American Hackney brothers from Detroit and their trailblazing proto-punk outfit Death back in the pantheon of punk legends where they had always belonged. Featuring interviews with the brothers and a host of suitably geekish record collectors who helped to push for the band’s rediscovery and re-evaluation it’s a bittersweet story that both inspires and breaks your heart.

On the Waterfront — Netflix

Despite the inconvenient fact that writer Budd Schulberg and director Elia Kazan used their 1954 Oscar win to give their twisted justification for outing Hollywood colleagues as communists to the 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, Marlon Brando’s turn as fallen prizefighter Terry Malloy is still legendary. Terry isn’t super smart, but he trusts his older brother Charley (Rod Steiger), the local mob bosses’ right-hand man, to keep him out of trouble. When Terry is tasked with assisting in a murder, his allegiances and conscience are put to the test.

For the first two decades of the 21st century, it seemed to me that young people tired quickly of South African history — in the curriculum, in family and community conversations, in the media they consumed. Now, I think, enough time has passed that teenagers today actually know little about the apartheid era and the transition to democracy. Thus, compared to the eye-rolling of the micro-generations that preceded them whenever the topic came up, they have a genuine curiosity about it.

There is something worrying and sad in this too, of course: it represents a broader collective forgetting on the part of South Africans, lending an urgency to the project of making history more visible and prominent in our shared public life. Indeed, as I walked through Truth to Power, I knew that I, too, have much to learn about our country’s past. We all do.

So it was with great enthusiasm that I took up the opportunity to watch an advance screener of Tutu, a new documentary that has its African premiere this weekend as part of the Encounters festival.

Directed by American Sam Pollard, Tutu is a detailed and lovingly rendered portrait of “The Arch”, as well as of his remarkable wife, Leah. It is also a film that carries their message of courage into the present moment of ebbing global optimism. Tutu insisted, “There is no situation of which we can say: this is totally devoid of hope.”

His confidence, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, that apartheid would fall (“When a people have decided to be free, there is nothing that can stop them.”) was vindicated when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and ascended to the presidency. This documentary conveys the infectiousness of Tutu’s joy, as powerful as his unshakeable opposition to unjust authority and his empathy for those suffering at its hands.

“I am a man of peace but not a pacifist,” he affirmed. While the film acknowledges the accusations levelled against Tutu — of being a sellout, advocating nonviolence during the struggle and emphasising mutual forgiveness among the “rainbow people” in the democratic era — it ultimately presents a strong case against such reductionist claims.

Pollard gives a vivid sense of the raging waters Tutu had to navigate. Constant threats by the apartheid state. Demonisation by white so-called Christians. Necklacing in the townships. The indifference of world leaders to a Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s appeals for sanctions. (Of the apartheid-supporting Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, Tutu declared, “They can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”)

In a gift to those who would later tell his story, the elderly Tutu described his own life in narrative terms: “It has had a beginning, a middle, an end. Well structured. A nice drama.” This film is, accordingly, structured into chapters.

Chapter 1, “Birth of a rebel”, touches on his Fort Hare years in the late 1960s, London in the early 1970s, his return to South Africa and the development of Black Theology, inspired by Steve Biko propounding Black Consciousness. Then came the 1976 Soweto uprising and Biko’s murder. Chapter 2, “A voice for justice”, pits Tutu against PW Botha and the viciousness of the white establishment; Tutu became the archbishop of Cape Town in 1986, the same year that the first State of Emergency was declared.

Chapter 3, “Finding forgiveness”, foregrounds the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Watching excerpts of the footage, one cannot fail to be moved by the sorrow that the TRC unearthed or by the depth of Tutu’s compassion as TRC chair.

Pollard also introduces a metadocumentary level, collapsing the division between those in front of and behind the camera. Among the most insightful talking heads interviewed are the two journalists who followed him closely over the final 20 years of his life, Benny Gool and Roger Friedman. Tutu fondly referred to them as “the Palestinian and the Jew”.

On that note, we are reminded that Tutu’s dedication to causes such as solidarity with the people of Gaza — like his activism regarding LGBTQ+ issues, healthcare and climate crisis — emerged from the same core conviction as his anti-apartheid heroism: “In the end, justice and goodness will prevail.”

• The Encounters South African International Documentary Festival runs in Johannesburg and Cape Town until June 14.

Improvisation mattered as much as design, and outcomes often surprised advocates and critics.

South Africa does not suffer from a shortage of ideas on how to transform the economy and create the conditions for faster growth. The challenge has been to translate those ideas into action.

Operation Vulindlela was launched in 2020 as a joint initiative of the presidency and the National Treasury to drive the implementation of structural reforms. Its name, and much of its inspiration, came from the late Tito Mboweni, the former finance minister and Reserve Bank governor in whose honour the Reserve Bank hosted a memorial lecture on Thursday.

Reforms are about reducing costs and barriers to entry, increasing competition, stimulating new investment and creating space for new entrants in the market. They are about building a dynamic, fast-growing and inclusive economy, and positioning South Africa to compete globally. Ultimately they are about improving the quality of life for ordinary people.

The reform programme was built to reduce obstacles to growth, working with the departments, regulators and public entities that had to implement the reforms. It aimed to act with the speed and cross-institutional reach that government processes don’t generally sustain.

The choice of structural reforms prioritised by Operation Vulindlela was informed by the most pressing socioeconomic problems of the day, as a forthcoming new report will detail. A major focus was the interrupted power supply and escalating electricity prices, which made South African companies uncompetitive and put enormous strain on households.

A logistics system characterised by a struggling rail and port network was a further area of focus, as was the deterioration of water services to the point where reliable supply could not be taken for granted.

The initial success achieved by Operation Vulindlela in driving these reforms has contributed to a nascent recovery in business and consumer confidence.

In energy, a fundamental transformation of the electricity sector to achieve energy security and drive down prices is under way. The pipeline of new private renewable energy projects is unprecedented, reflecting the success of reforms to open up the market since government removed the licensing threshold in 2021.

New investment

The renewable energy investment pipeline has grown to 24GW currently in the grid connection process, with more than 19,000MW of new generation capacity already registered by the national energy regulator.

Environmental impact assessment timelines for new generation projects were reduced from 100 days to 57. The reforms have opened the way for about R600bn of new investment over the next two to three years.

In logistics, private concessions are being rolled out. The 25-year concession for the Durban Container Terminal Pier 2 became effective in January and has already translated into operational improvements.

Eleven train operating companies have been selected on 41 routes across six of Transnet’s freight corridors, with seven expected to commence operations in the second quarter of next year. As a result, we are seeing strong private investment in rolling stock.

In water, water use licence turnaround times were reduced from 300 to 90 days, and a backlog of more than 1,000 outstanding applications was cleared. Only 35% of water use licence applications were approved within 30 days in 2022/23, but this rose to 80% in 2025/26. An independent assessment placed the GDP contribution of that administrative change at R56.5bn and about 2,500 jobs since 2022.

More than 300,000 visa applications were resolved, some outstanding for more than a decade, and more than 100,000 tourists from new source markets were fast-tracked through a reformed system. The cost of 2 gigabytes of mobile data fell from R149 to R99.

Phase 2 of Operation Vulindlela, which was launched in May 2025, must engage with far more difficult challenges. These include the deterioration of basic municipal services, the near collapse of passenger rail, and the financial and operational challenges in local government.

These are not obstructions in otherwise functioning systems. They are the consequences of systems that have decayed over many years through fiscal strain, weakened institutional capacity and decades of delayed infrastructure investment.

Of 144 water service authorities, where the municipality is responsible for delivering water and sanitation services, 107 were scored “poor” (33) or “critical” (74) on the performance of their drinking water systems. These figures reflect a structural unravelling of the municipal service delivery model rather than isolated failures. Turning this around will demand a new service delivery model underpinned by the reform recommendations in the local government white paper.

Metrorail, which served about 450-million passenger trips annually before the Covid-19 pandemic, has recovered to only a fraction of that volume, leaving many commuters without affordable, reliable public transport.

Over the next few years the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa will benefit from a R23.1bn investment in signalling systems across the Metrorail network, and a R7.4bn increase to its operations budget to allow it to continue opening new lines. A further R5.7bn will ensure its rolling stock programme continues to deliver new trains as investment in signalling allows more trains onto the network.

Social grant applications

MzansiXchange, a government data exchange platform currently in pilot phase, will enable near-instantaneous verification of social grant applications across government databases. A new end-to-end electronic procurement system will extend that logic of system integrity to create far greater procurement transparency across government.

The model that produced results in phase 1 of Operation Vulindlela was of a focused team in the presidency and National Treasury supporting reform implementers, the government departments and state-owned entities at the heart of driving actual implementation.

Building on the success of phase 1, we must acknowledge the problems we seek to address in phase 2 are harder, the timelines are longer, and the institutional engagement must go deeper into the architecture of the state than required by previous reforms.

A broader shift is now visible in South Africa’s international standing. Credit rating improvements, removal from the Financial Action Task Force greylist and recognition by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development and the IMF reflect a genuine shift in reform credibility.

This materially affects borrowing costs, investor sentiment and the fiscal latitude available to the state. But we face the more demanding tasks of achieving an economy that attracts investment, generates employment at a scale, delivers reliable services to households across the country, and progressively closes the distance between where people live and the opportunities they need to reach.

Hirschman argued that what distinguishes reform-mongers is their capacity to find within seemingly intractable obstacles the specific possibilities that others have overlooked. Phase 2 of Operation Vulindlela demands that same capacity applied to deeper and more complex areas of reform — the same level of dedication and rigour the late Mboweni demanded from everyone he worked with.

It is with that understanding, and no illusions about the difficulty of the next stage, that our work continues.

• Dicks heads the project management office in the presidency. Pieterse is director-general of the National Treasury.

This is according to NielsenIQ’s (NIQ South Africa) state of the retail nation report, which shows that traditional trade generated R43.1bn in sales during the quarter, continuing a trend seen throughout last year.

By contrast, modern trade channels, including large retail chains and online platforms, recorded slower growth, with unit volumes increasing by just 1.7%.

Overall, consumers spent more than R173.6bn on fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) in the quarter. The NIQ said sales value rose by 6.5% year on year, while unit sales increased by 9.1%, indicating that consumers are buying more items, often at lower prices.

“Lower inflation provided a modest tailwind for traditional trade, particularly among highly price-sensitive consumers. However, demand remains constrained by weak income growth and elevated unemployment,” said NIQ South Africa managing director Zak Haeri.

The report attributes the strong performance of traditional outlets to their proximity to consumers and flexible purchasing options. These stores allow shoppers to buy smaller quantities more frequently, helping them manage cash flow and reduce transport costs.

“Traditional outlets retain a structural advantage through proximity and flexible purchasing, enabling smaller, more frequent transactions that help households manage cash flow and transport costs. While easing price pressure supports stabilisation, especially in food staples, growth remains uneven and highly contested,” he said.

The report shows that affordability has become a key factor shaping consumer behaviour across the retail sector. In the technology and durables (T&D) market, unit sales grew faster than sales value as prices fell and consumers opted for cheaper products.

Sales volumes increased in categories such as IT equipment and televisions, but overall value fell due to lower average selling prices. The telecoms segment, including smartphones, recorded a 7.5% drop in unit sales and a 3.1% drop in value, as consumers delayed upgrading devices.

The move towards affordability is also visible in FMCG categories.

Fastest-growing segments

NIQ said while food sales reached R28.1bn, with volumes up 4.5% and value up 7.2%, growth was uneven. Snacking was listed with the fastest-growing segments, while baby food and care was the only category to decline, with sales value falling by 2.1%.

Private label products also lost market share during the quarter, declining by 1.1% compared with the same period last year. It was driven by stronger performance in traditional trade and increased promotional activity from branded products, NIQ said.

After a strong start to the year, the outlook for the retail sector is becoming uncertain. Inflation, which eased in early 2026 due to stable food prices and lower fuel costs, is expected to rise in the coming months.

“Softer inflation, reflecting a combination of more stable food prices and lower fuel costs, gave consumers and retailers some breathing room in the early months of 2026,” Haeri said.

However, fuel price increases have already pushed inflation higher, with consumer inflation reaching 4% in April. Rising input costs and global factors are expected to add further pressure.

These conditions are likely to affect consumers and retailers. Shoppers are expected to cut back on spending, delay nonessential purchases and continue seeking lower-priced options, while retailers may face increasing pressure to balance pricing with maintaining sales volumes.

“Inflation is expected to accelerate through the second half of 2026, driven by increasing input costs and spillovers from the conflict in the Middle East. Brands and retailers must make well-considered price increases in response,” said Haeri.

“Retailers and brands will need to balance protecting their margins with targeted value offerings to sustain volumes in this constrained environment. Those that fail to adapt their value proposition risk losing share as consumers become increasingly selective in their spending priorities.”

You open a maps app. Two routes appear. One is shorter. The app pushes you toward the longer one — traffic is already building near the offramp. You do not see the calculation. You see the instruction: take this road.

A fraud analyst sees another: hold this transaction. A recruiter sees another: review this candidate before that one. A loan system sees another: decline.

Last week we looked at data — the recorded evidence AI is allowed to learn from. This week comes the next layer. Once the data exists, something must decide what to do with it. That something is the algorithm.

What an algorithm actually is

An algorithm is a step-by-step method for turning an input into an output. A recipe is an algorithm: ingredients in, meal out. A loan affordability calculation is an algorithm: income, expenses, interest rate and term in; repayment capacity out. A call centre routing rule is an algorithm: complaint type, language, customer value and agent availability in; queue position out.

AI did not invent algorithms. It made them more powerful, less visible and harder to interrogate. In ordinary software the steps are written by people: if an invoice is 30 days overdue, flag it; if stock falls below the threshold, reorder. Every foreseeable case coded in advance. Reliable for known scenarios. Brittle when the world changes.

AI works differently. Instead of a human writing every rule, the system is shown many examples — the data we discussed last week — and figures out its own internal rules. The instructions emerge from the data rather than being hand-crafted. This is why a navigation app improves without a developer rewriting code every week.

Traditional software: a human writes the full instructions first, then the computer executes. AI: the system discovers useful instructions from examples, then applies them to new situations. That reversal is worth holding on to.

Three algorithms already deciding things about you

The sorting algorithm decides what you see first. Gmail’s priority inbox was not programmed with a list of important people. It learned from your behaviour — what you open quickly, ignore or reply to. Importance is not a property of the email. It is an output of the algorithm that studied you.

The scoring algorithm decides your access. At Absa, Nedbank and Standard Bank, loan applications are processed by models weighing payment history, utilisation, account age and dozens of other variables. You never negotiate that weighting. The score is not a judgment. It is a calculation — constrained by the data it was fed and the priorities encoded into the model.

The recommendation algorithm decides what you encounter next. YouTube, Spotify and TikTok identify people who behave like you and surface what they engaged with. Your taste is approximated by your history, filtered through everyone else’s. What the result cannot do is introduce you to something genuinely outside your pattern. That limit is worth knowing.

Algorithms carry priorities

Every algorithm optimises for something. A maps app may optimise for the fastest route, fewest tolls or least fuel. A bank may optimise for fraud prevention, convenience, compliance or loss reduction. Those are not technical details. They are business choices — made before you arrived.

If a fraud algorithm is tuned too aggressively, it protects the bank while frustrating legitimate customers. If a recruitment algorithm optimises for people who resemble past successful hires, it may quietly repeat the old definition of promising. The algorithm will not pause to ask whether the objective was fair, complete or current. It pursues the target it was given — or inferred from history.

Algorithms do not merely calculate. They express priorities.

When to question the logic

Three situations deserve scrutiny:

• When the stakes are high. Algorithms informing credit decisions, recruitment shortlisting, medical triage or legal risk are not value-neutral. Before accepting the output, ask what the system was optimising for — and whose outcomes were represented in the training data.
• When the population is different. A model trained on salaried urban customers may misbehave when applied to gig workers or informal earners. Fraud models built on US transaction data behave differently in Joburg. This is a limit to check before deployment, not a flaw in the concept.
• When the explanation is absent. Many modern algorithms cannot produce a plain-language account of an individual decision. If a loan is declined or a profile downranked, the system may not say why in terms a human can verify. Where decisions must be explainable — by regulation, by fairness or by audit requirements — the choice of algorithm matters as much as the choice of data.

What this means for your work

Algorithms are embedded in more business processes than most managers realise: invoice approvals, staff rostering, customer segmentation, demand forecasting and compliance monitoring. Most run invisibly until something goes wrong.

Fluency does not require understanding the maths. It requires four questions before trusting any algorithmic output: what went in; what was being optimised; what happens when it is wrong; and who is accountable?

An algorithm that misprices a product loses margin. One that misclassifies a customer loses trust. One that makes an unsupported lending decision may violate the National Credit Act. The consequences are not technical. They are financial, reputational and legal.

Automated confidence is not the same as accuracy.

Our task this week

Choose one automated decision you encounter this week — a route, a score, a recommendation, or an approval. Ask: what went in, what objective was it serving, what happens when it is wrong, and how would you challenge the result?

• Mafinyani is a senior partner in financial engineering & artificial intelligence at the specialised finance, risk and applied technology firm Intellica Analytics. Next week: machine learning — how systems learn from data. If algorithms are the instructions, machine learning is the process by which AI writes those instructions for itself.

Along with a few tiny and irrelevant sects brought in to make up the numbers, it did manage to bring together the political forces that emerged from the old “radical economic transformation” (RET) faction of the ANC.

The EFF, Jacob Zuma’s MK party, the ATM and Ace Magashule’s ACT were all there. Irvin Jim from the metalworkers’ union Numsa, who has moved towards RET politics in recent years, was also in attendance.

The conference has caused a large and raw rupture within the Left. The mass-based democratic organisations of the Left, such as Abahlali baseMjondolo, Mining Affected Communities United in Action and the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), along with various NGOs and intellectuals, stayed away on principle.

Their central reason for rejecting the conference was the inclusion of MK which, along with its leader’s history of extreme corruption and far-right positions on many social issues, has been closely associated with the xenophobic hate group March and March. A number of senior SACP figures privately expressed similar concerns. A number of Left organisations also complained that they had been listed on the programme without having been consulted.

The many requests for transparency around the funding of the conference were refused but, correctly or incorrectly, there seems to be a shared understanding across the Left that the money came from the same sources that fund Jim’s apparent “luxury lifestyle”. Unless there is clarity on the funding this understanding will inevitably be taken as fact.

There is now a clear and bitter split between the forces of the Left that reject xenophobia and corruption and those happy to ally with xenophobic and corrupt forms of nationalism. People in the former camp were disgusted to see a “Left” conference being addressed by the likes of Tony Yengeni, Magashule and Jim, all of whom are severely compromised.

What has become clear over the past few years is that there is now a fundamental political and ethical divide within what still calls itself the Left. On one side are forces committed to democratic organisation, accountability, nonracialism, internationalism and the defence of public institutions and public goods.

There is now a clear and bitter split between the forces of the Left that reject xenophobia and corruption and those happy to ally with xenophobic and corrupt forms of nationalism.

On the other are forces increasingly organised around patronage, conspiracy, strongman politics and forms of chauvinist nationalism. The latter often presents itself in radical language, but in practice politics becomes centred on access to state resources, political protection networks and personal loyalty to leaders, rather than democratic accountability or mass organisation from below.

The normalisation of xenophobia marks a profound political degeneration. Once migrants are blamed for unemployment, collapsing public services and crime the real sources of the crisis disappear from view: austerity, deindustrialisation, corruption, elite accumulation and state failure. Xenophobia redirects anger downwards towards vulnerable people rather than upwards towards political and economic elites.

No serious Left politics can be built on that basis. Across the world xenophobia has repeatedly functioned as a mechanism through which elites protect themselves from popular anger while societies become more authoritarian and more fragmented.

It’s no secret that the SACP is strongly opposed to the government of national unity (GNU), which is in effect a coalition government with the ANC and DA as key players. It would have preferred an alliance with the EFF and MK. Bringing the EFF and MK party into the Conference of the Left is widely understood as an attempt by the SACP to build a working alliance with these organisations with a view to negotiating a bloc return to, or deal with, the ANC after the next local and national elections. For this project the failing municipal governments in Johannesburg and Gauteng provide a model for the way forward.

From a Left perspective, the GNU has many serious failings. It continues to hold to austerity and conservative macroeconomic policy while driving a number of hard turns to the Right, including on migration, amendments to the laws that give some protection to land rights, and growing support for traditional leaders. It has failed to create jobs, build significant public housing or achieve meaningful land reform.

However, the crisis in Johannesburg offers a warning about where corrupt nationalist and xenophobic populism leads in practice. The city now lurches from one crisis to another while basic governance and services continue to deteriorate. Infrastructure collapses, water systems fail, roads decay and refuse accumulates while politically connected managers receive enormous salaries as public capacity weakens.

Municipal government increasingly appears less an instrument for public administration than a terrain for factional bargaining and patronage accumulation. For the democratic Left this cannot credibly be presented as a progressive alternative to the GNU.

The democratic Left now faces a profound strategic problem. Some organisations retain considerable moral credibility because they have consistently opposed corruption, repression and xenophobia. But moral authority on its own cannot shape state power.

Again and again the democratic Left has hesitated to build an electoral vehicle capable of contesting power at local and national level. The result is a vacuum in which voters, including working-class and poor voters, are left with only two choices: liberal technocracy on the one hand and corrupt and sometimes even criminal nationalist populism on the other.

Again and again the democratic Left has hesitated to build an electoral vehicle capable of contesting power at local and national level.

Internationally there are clear examples showing that another path is possible. Lula da Silva rebuilt the Brazilian Left through broad democratic coalition-building rooted in labour, poor communities and social movements, while maintaining a commitment to public institutions and social redistribution.

In Britain Jeremy Corbyn and Zack Polanski have both rejected xenophobic politics in the face of the rise of Nigel Farage, the drift of the Conservatives towards the Right and the rightward shift imposed on Labour under Keir Starmer.

In New York Zohran Mamdani has rejected Trumpian xenophobia while building support around concrete material questions, including housing, transport and food prices. These projects are different in important ways, but they share an insistence that Left politics must be both democratic and materially grounded.

For the democratic and principled Left a strengthening of the DA’s role in a continuation of the GNU would be a serious setback. But bringing corrupt and sometimes xenophobic nationalists into coalition with the ANC would also be a disaster. Left must be built along the lines of what Da Silva, Corbyn and Polanski have achieved.

There are now two critical questions that confront us. The first pertains to the balance of forces in the ANC: will they lean towards the DA or towards the EFF and MK as ANC support continues to collapse? The second pertains to the democratic Left: will Saftu and others take up the challenge to build a Left party that opposes corruption and xenophobia?

We do also need to know who funded the conference and will fund the work of the collation it has built going forward. If the SACP and its new allies among the corrupt nationalists will not answer that question, investigative journalism must.

• Dr Buccus, a political analyst, is a senior research associate at the Auwal Socioeconomic Research Institute.

Who Owns Whom conducted an exercise for the EU to map member countries’ investments in South Africa, first in 2020 and again in 2025. It found that the EU remains the largest investor by a substantial margin, followed by the US and UK.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) did not feature in the 2020 research but recorded 63 investments in 2025. These include DP World’s R12.7bn acquisition of Imperial Logistics and Qatar Airways’ 25% minority stake in local private airline Airlink. UAE-based Network International LLC also acquired the DPO Group, now known as DPO Pay by Network, which operates e-commerce platforms in 19 African countries.

China, including Hong Kong, expanded its investment footprint in South Africa from 187 to 217 entities. These investments include prominent companies such as Wesizwe Platinum, Shanduka Group, Standard Bank, AfriSam and Safika Holdings (the latter two via Standard Bank), as well as Village Main, Buffelsfontein Gold and Simmer and Jack Investments (the latter two via Village Main). The Chinese holding company is Heaven-Sent SA Sunshine Investment Company.

Italy recorded the largest increase in foreign direct investment share, rising from 3.6% to 9.4%, driven in part by the 2024 acquisition of the Southern African operations of Greece-based Astir Vitogiannis’ Coleus Packaging by Italy’s Guala Closures, a global manufacturer of bottle caps. Ireland increased its share of investments from 2.8% to 3.1%, with a big transaction being the takeover of African Oxygen by Linde.

Though Norway is not an EU member it remains closely aligned through the European Economic Area Agreement. The Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund) has recently invested in South Africa, targeting the renewable energy and food sectors, and has acquired stakes in Nafasi Water Technologies (formerly Aveng Water), Anthem Group Holdings, Mulilo Energy, the Phatisa Group and Langeberg Foods.

At the third EU-AU ministerial meeting in May last year, EU commissioner for international partnerships Jozef Sikela said the EU Global Gateway investment strategy has raised R5.7bn since 2021 to fund investment in Africa across digital infrastructure, clean energy, transport and pharmaceuticals.

Andrew McGregor

Who Owns Whom

Non-tariff barriers limit SA-Kenya agricultural trade

There is room to expand agricultural trade between South Africa and Kenya, especially in grains (“Standard Bank backs investment in powerhouse Kenya during Ruto visit”, June 4).

Kenya isn’t yet a bigger agricultural export market for South Africa, accounting for just 1%, or $141m, of South Africa’s $15.1bn in agricultural exports in 2025, mainly vegetable oils, fruit, nuts, beverages, sugar and live animals.

Yet Kenya is a major buyer of agricultural products from the world market. In 2025 it spent $3.7bn importing agricultural products, mainly vegetable oils and grains.

Non-tariff barriers are part of the problem. Consider maize. Kenya is a major importer of maize and has struggled to source supplies in recent years when confronted by drought. South Africa is a major maize exporter but has not been a key supplier to Kenya due to its restrictions on the import of genetically engineered organism (GMO) produce.

GMO maize accounts for about 80% of South Africa’s production, which accounts in part for our impressive yield gains, placing us in a position where, in the 2025-26 season, South Africa is set to produce 17.1-million tonnes of maize. Domestic consumption is about 12-million tonnes. In the absence of GMO restrictions Kenya could be among South Africa’s top export markets.

Wandile Sihlobo

Presidential envoy on agriculture & land; chief economist, Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa; senior research fellow, department of agricultural economics, Stellenbosch University

State struggles to fund promised expansion of labour inspectorate

Thando Maeko’s article refers (“Government seeking funding for 10,000 additional labour inspectors”, June 2).

It is always interesting to read articles of this nature because they expose the government’s double speak. President Cyril Ramaphosa said in his state of the nation address earlier in the year that the government would be employing another 10,000 labour inspectors. It was not an issue that was up for discussion but a promise made to the nation.

We now hear from employment & labour minister Nomakhosazana Meth that she has had to go cap in hand to the finance minister to try and fund a major expansion of the labour inspectorate.

The National Treasury does not have the funding either. In fact, the budget allocation to her department has necessitated a reduction in the funding of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation & Arbitration and Nedlac, both vital institutions in our volatile labour environment.

The labour inspectors we do have in South Africa are underfunded, under-resourced and undertrained. We are regularly told that the department doesn’t have the money to properly resource the inspectorate.

On an oversight visit, the portfolio committee on employment & labour was told by various officials that the IT system is collapsing and both the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the Compensation Fund are falling apart.

Michael Bagraim, MP

DA employment & labour spokesperson

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businessday.co.za. Letters of more than 200 words may be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.

Take the regulation of informal business as an example. Many people champion the potential of small business and the informal sector to create jobs and sustain livelihoods. But the practical obstacles are formidable, especially at the local level.

Even the City of Cape Town, usually the bastion of effective local government, seems to be falling into the trap of senseless regulation. According to an article carried in News 24, the city has issued letters to several pensioners in Hanover Park, ordering them to stop selling sweets and baked goods from their homes as their houses are not zoned for business. The activity is therefore illegal under the city’s bylaws and can attract a fine of up to R80,000 or up to 20 years in prison. The threat of a hefty fine or prison and a criminal record ― all for running a township micro enterprise.

Spaza shop owners and women running early childhood development (ECD) centres face similar senseless obstacles. I spoke this week with a spaza shop owner who tried to get a licence from the City of Johannesburg. She was told to submit her title deed (difficult to acquire in many townships), rezoning application (an expensive process), building plans, engineering drawings and parking provision. The cost of attaining these documents exceeded R100,000.

ECD practitioners are in a similar position, spending significant time and money trying to acquire town planning documentation so they don’t fall foul of the law. If you don’t have this licence, you are either vulnerable to the fines and jail terms threatened by Cape Town or to extortion from the Joburg metro police, who ask to see your licence and, if you don’t have one, demand payment.

The question here is what we are trying to regulate. What is the state trying to achieve? In the case of spaza shops and ECD centres the key is health and safety. We need to ensure the shop does not store rat poison alongside food and that its food products are safe. We need to ensure ECD centres adhere to basic building standards and have fire extinguishers and safe toilets.

If you don’t have this licence, you are either vulnerable to the fines and jail terms threatened by Cape Town or to extortion from the Joburg metro police, who ask to see your licence and, if you don’t have one, demand payment.

None of this is achieved by town planning information such as zoning, title deeds or complex property schedules. Micro businesses should be asked for information that ensures health and safety outcomes: fire prevention, ventilation, food storage and basic engineering checks. The local authority should facilitate this rather than arriving with a big stick.

The recently published Business Licensing Bill attempts to address the problem but may have unintended consequences. It requires all businesses to register with the local authority unless exempted by the minister. Failure to do so is an offence. It then directs local authorities to create simplified systems to help small businesses but relies on them to figure out how to do this.

In practice, the requirement to register will impose a new burden on micro enterprises and make them vulnerable to extortion. The bill should remove the need for town planning compliance for micro enterprises and instead get the local authority to focus on health and safety. Much could be achieved through a simple digital licensing process facilitated by national authorities.

In the absence of a sensible approach to regulation, we will continue to impede the small business activities that could enable many families to thrive.

• Bethlehem is an economic development specialist and partner at Genesis Analytics. She has worked in the forestry, renewable energy, housing and property sectors as well as in local and national government. She writes in her personal capacity.

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan once said that the most tragic thing about masculinity was that it had a symbol. He didn’t have He-Man in mind when he made this comment. He died in 1981, two years before the original cartoon’s debut. But he might as well have. (He was talking about the phallus, if you’re wondering).

It is difficult to think of a more quintessentially Freudian creation than Mattel’s hyperbolically muscular hero: a man who, in the words of his evil nemesis Skeletor in this new remake, draws his power from that “strong, powerful thing hanging between your legs”.

The central conceit of this take on Masters of the Universe is to make, in effect, a male Barbie movie. Taking a similarly gendered toy product as its prompt, the film tasks itself with answering the question of what He-Man means to audiences in 2026. I suspect phrases like “fresh take”, “modern sensibility” and “toxic masculinity” were used with considerable earnestness at various pitch meetings in the film’s preproduction process.

The story unfolds as follows. A brief prologue introduces us to the young Prince Adam (He-Man before he becomes He-Man) of Eternia not as a mighty warrior but as a boy struggling to live up to the manly prowess of his father’s expectations. At the bottom of his class in a militaristic world of combat, he is considered by pretty much everyone as a likeable but weedy young boy, ill-equipped to face the world as a proper man.

Then the evil Skeletor shows up, usurps his father’s throne and forces Adam into exile on Earth, where he must embark on a journey of self-discovery so he can one day return to the world of Eternia where he belongs and regain his father’s throne.

The film treats the idea of a flawed, contemporary Adam with conspicuous sincerity, though the first act mines Adam’s embattled masculinity for comedy. We encounter him working in HR, specialising in conflict resolution. His work badge features pronouns. He attends seminars on consent, shares “his truth” freely and listens compassionately to the truths of others. He is emphatically not the He-Man we remember. Yet, supposedly, he has power or, at the very least, is going to.

The continuous jabs at the mismatch between modern society and the masculine ideals embodied in Mattel’s original He-Man toy are presumably attempting to offer a more nuanced, or at the very least more irreverent, take on the He-Man character.

This assumes that comedy always subverts things. It doesn’t. Instead, the humour acts as a kind of permission structure, signalling self-awareness as a means of excusing the moments it actually takes seriously.

Endless jokes are made at the expense of contemporary woke culture. Some jokes are made at the more absurd elements of the franchise’s mythology and iconography. But no jokes are made at anything fundamental to the franchise’s lore or logic.

The film does not invite laughter at the expense of male physique, the importance of bravery, or the combat-based rules by which this entire fantasy world is governed. Indeed, it is here where the humour dries up, choosing to find its “heart” at the moments of physical conquest and sacrifice as Adam returns to Eternia and, well … I shan’t spoil it, but I suspect you can guess the rest.

What Masters of the Universe gets badly wrong is the assumption that the franchise needs to be explained or justified, that He-Man’s phallic symbolism requires management and modernisation rather than, simply, play.

He-Man was never supposed to make sense to begin with. If it had a virtue, it was that the absurdly phallic franchise allowed young children of any gender to hold just a little lighter the gender ideals expected of them. He-Man’s bulging biceps and absurdly one-dimensional characterisation allowed him to embody masculinity in a way no actual man could. And, paradoxically, that made masculinity feel less real as a concept as a result.

The original 1983 cartoon was produced to sell toys, and it sold them most effectively when it was delirious, incoherent and utterly indifferent to the anxieties of adult interpretation. Even the original live-action film was confident enough to produce the camp masculine spectacle that the franchise represents. This new film is too afraid of its shadow to simply let He-Man be what he is and trust modern audiences to know what to do with him.

• This article appeared first on The Conversation.

Sergeant is a lecturer in digital media production at the University of Westminster.

The development will consolidate manufacturing, laboratories, research and development, warehousing, distribution and office functions into a single integrated facility, with completion targeted for April 30 2027 under a 10-year lease agreement.

Cranbrook Flavours is an independently owned African flavour manufacturer that produces flavour systems, seasonings and ingredient solutions for food and beverage producers across Africa and global markets.

“The investment comes at an important point in the company’s growth journey, and our current operations have reached a point where the next stage of growth needs a purpose-built environment,” Cranbrook MD Kevin Johnstone said.

The new facility would allow the business to expand output, improve production efficiency, strengthen research and development capacity and introduce new technologies into its African operations while remaining close to its existing base, Johnstone said.

Improvon CEO Stefano Contardo said the project reflects a broader shift in industrial development strategy.

“Cranbrook’s operation is technically demanding, and the facility has been designed around that reality from the start, with development, engineering and operational teams working closely to ensure the building delivers the scale, flexibility and technical infrastructure needed for growth,” Contardo said.

The facility will feature a 24m apex height to accommodate large-scale spray drying systems, segregated production zones for sweet and savoury products, laboratories, cold storage, flammable goods handling and controlled manufacturing environments.

The project highlights a broader trend in South Africa’s industrial property market toward bespoke, high-specification facilities tailored to advanced manufacturing requirements.

Improvon has more than 1.3-million square metres of logistics and industrial space developed across sub-Saharan Africa and a land bank exceeding 600,000 square metres.

It was a juxtaposition he noted, pointing out that South Africa’s foreign policy carries a moral weight that transcends budget cycles. His department’s R7.23bn budget, the minister told parliament, represents the outward projection of a hard-won democracy, grounded in ubuntu and the memory of international isolation during apartheid.

He is not wrong about the symbolism. But symbolism is not a budget line item. South Africa enters this financial year with economic growth below 2%, stubbornly high unemployment and a foreign ministry whose core diplomatic corps across 114 missions in 102 countries has a vacancy rate of 26.3% (624 unfilled posts).

Lamola outlined three main tasks for South African diplomacy: advancing African continental interests, reforming global governance and leveraging foreign policy to improve domestic conditions. The difficulty lies in achieving those objectives at scale with a budget growing at only 1.8% nominally, against inflation running above 4%.

In his seminal 1993 essay, ”South Africa’s Future Foreign Policy”, published in the journal Foreign Affairs, Nelson Mandela set out the six pillars that would define postapartheid foreign policy: human rights, democracy, international law, peace, African interests and economic co-operation. Mandela was explicit that South Africa’s ability to shoulder global responsibilities depended on successful domestic economic recovery.

Foreign investment, reciprocal trade and South-South partnerships were framed as instruments of rescue, not merely gestures of solidarity. That conditional logic has since been largely decoupled from the country’s foreign policy doctrine.

Moral architecture

The moral architecture remains intact; the economic constraints have been aestheticised rather than confronted. Lamola’s speech referenced ubuntu but contained no discussion of trade-offs. It listed three ambitious tasks without specifying what activities the department would deprioritise to fund them.

A closer look at the numbers is instructive. Of the department’s R22.4bn three-year envelope, 47% goes to the compensation of employees. Operating leases on embassies and chanceries consume about R1bn annually. Mandatory multilateral contributions — R1.1bn to the AU, R557m to the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and R226m to the UN — further shrink discretionary expenditure. In budgetary terms, the department is an expensive institution with limited room for manoeuvre.

Performance indicators tell a similar story: targets of 60 bilateral engagements, five continental peace and stability engagements and four South-South reports a year (unchanged from previous years). These are minimum floors, not metrics of a department operating at the ambitious level South Africa claims on the global stage.

Meanwhile, the department’s commitments continue to expand. South Africa will chair Sadc from August, host the first review conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in November, serve on the AU Peace & Security Council, support processes in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Western Sahara, pursue the International Court of Justice case against Israel, lead the Hague Group and implement G20 outcomes.

Each initiative carries substantial costs in seconded personnel, legal resources and intersessional work. Yet none of these appears to be explicitly itemised in the budget.

The Hague Group commitments warrant particular scrutiny. The minister described them as including “halting arms transfers, blocking weapons shipments, suspending procurement from Israeli firms [and] ceasing energy exports”.

Impacts ignored

Whatever form these abstract measures ultimately take, they will have implications in trade flows, investment perceptions and companies engaged with affected parties. Neither the speech nor the budget appears to provide for these potential costs or risks.

The department would be better served by prioritising missions more ruthlessly: identifying the highest-value bilateral relationships and resourcing them adequately. Performance measurements should shift from activity counts (“60 economic diplomacy initiatives”) to outcomes: foreign direct investment facilitated, market access deals secured and trade barriers resolved per mission.

Multilateral and special commitments, such as the Hague Group, the TPNW presidency and chairing Sadc should be separately itemised so that parliament and the public can scrutinise their fiscal impact rather than allowing them to remain buried in broad subprogramme aggregates.

The minister closed by quoting Mandela on freedom as “the apple of [our] eye”. Mandela also understood that freedom requires sound economic foundations capable of supporting it. The 2026 budget vote does not strengthen those foundations; it preserves an expansive foreign policy doctrine while gradually eroding the institutional capacity needed to deliver it.

A foreign policy that fails to account for costs, expected returns and necessary trade-offs is not a strategy. It risks becoming what scholars term symbolic hegemony. The Mandela inheritance deserves a more rigorous approach.

• Davhie is research associate at the Centre for Risk Analysis, focusing on political risk and foreign policy.

Speaking to Business Day on the sidelines of the inaugural Tito Mboweni Memorial Lecture on Thursday, Kganyago said the Reserve Bank’s focus is on whether price shocks spread beyond their initial impact.

“The rise in oil prices gets felt immediately at the pump,” he said. “The way in which a central bank reacts to those shocks is understanding the nature of the shock and whether those shocks lead to other prices rising outside of the fuel price.

“If we exclude fuel prices from overall inflation, prices are beginning to rise, and we expect that they will continue to rise and peak in the first quarter of next year. And that is what monetary policy has to address.”

Price stability

Asked about the balance between the need for lower inflation and lower interest rates to support the economy, Kganyago said price stability remains the Bank’s long-term objective.

“In the short run we will face shocks. There is nothing monetary policy can do about those shocks. What we can do is ensure that in the long run inflation is low and stable,” he said.

“In the long run, that trade-off does not exist. And that is what we should actually be focusing on. And that is what Tito Mboweni knew.”

Kganyago said the legacy of the late former Reserve Bank governor, who held the position from 1999 to 2009 and died in 2024, extended beyond inflation targeting.

“I would like to associate Mboweni’s legacy with transparency and accountability to the people of South Africa. He took central banking to the people, and the monetary policy forums meant that we were able to interact with people broader than the analyst community we normally interact with.”

Worsening imbalances

The lecture was delivered by Axel Weber, former president of the Bundesbank.

Drawing on a recent report prepared for the G7, Weber warned that global economic imbalances are increasing and that IMF and World Bank projections suggest they will continue to grow.

China continues to rely heavily on exports due to weak domestic demand, the EU faces weak internal demand and investment, and the US is running huge fiscal deficits, Weber said.

“These structural divergences underpin persistent external imbalances and will continue to contribute, if not corrected, to global tensions,” he said.

He criticised the use of tariffs to address trade imbalances and raised concerns about US fiscal deficits and its dependence on capital inflows from the rest of the world.

“This is a massive refinancing of the US from the rest of the world,” Weber said.

Weber referred to Mboweni’s economic views repeatedly, saying the former governor and finance minister believed in macroeconomic stability, international co-operation and disciplined public finances.

“He believed in rules-based, co-operative, credible central bank policy, open markets with safeguards and disciplined public finance,” Weber said.

Mboweni would probably have warned that smaller economies such as South Africa could face weaker growth, inflationary shocks and social instability if major economies failed to co-operate, he added.

Story audio is generated using AI

President Cyril Ramaphosa says the government will dispatch envoys across Africa and around the world to build international co-operation on migration.

The president on Thursday used Kenyan President William Ruto’s state visit to South Africa to position the two countries as a co-ordinated African diplomatic force in an increasingly fractured global order.

Ramaphosa said South Africa is already consulting governments across Africa on migration management. He said the country wants to understand how other countries had dealt with border pressures. He did not specify when the envoys will be deployed or which countries will be prioritised.

He said the two countries are also aligned on regional peace dossiers, with Kenya playing a role in Sudan, and South Africa engaged on South Sudan.

Both leaders have domestic economies that are under pressure. Ruto has contended with cost-of-living and fuel protests at home, while Ramaphosa has had to manage sporadic violence directed at immigrants in low-income areas and mounting political scrutiny over border enforcement.

The visit came against the backdrop of speculation over tension between the two governments after Ruto skipped a G20 gathering in South Africa and Ramaphosa did not attend an Africa-Forward summit in Kenya. Officials from both countries publicly dismissed suggestions of any strain ahead of the visit.

Minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni saying violence against immigrants in SA is prohibited and those who are found guilty of doing it will be prosecuted @BDliveSA pic.twitter.com/HZ2plCgREG

— Thando Maeko (@HelloThando) June 4, 2026

Speaking at a media briefing with Ruto at the Union Buildings on Thursday, Ramaphosa said migration has become a continental and global challenge requiring co-ordinated diplomatic engagement rather than isolated national responses.

“Yes, there will be envoys. Yes, there will be people that we will send out, not only on the continent but also around the world,” Ramaphosa said. “Africa should develop a much stronger method of helping each other to resolve problems, continental problems and national problems.”

Ruto’s three-day state visit, which included bilateral talks, a signing ceremony and an evening business forum, is aimed at elevating ties between East and Southern Africa’s two largest economies into what both governments described as a strategic partnership. The presidents signed six memorandums of agreement spanning trade, transport, tourism and agriculture.

South Africa’s exports to Kenya exceed R1bn a year, and at least 60 South African companies operate there. Kenya remains South Africa’s largest trading partner on the continent outside the Southern African Development Community.

The visit also brought into focus growing co-ordination between Pretoria and Nairobi on global governance reform and Africa’s positioning amid intensifying competition between the US, China, Russia and Europe for influence on the continent.

Ruto said African countries are no longer observers in global affairs.

“For a very long time our voice, our ideas, our proposals did not find [their] way to the forum of fora that then would influence global discourse,” he said. “South Africa became the first African to host the G20 … We commend South Africa, and President Ramaphosa specifically, for taking the stage and positioning Africa rightfully.”

The Hawks’ Durban serious organised crime investigation unit commander, Col Gavin Jacob, testified that his superior, Brig Msizi Nyuswa, told him there was an attempted break-in on October 27, 2021, but despite that, the drugs were not moved from the facility.

The cocaine was seized in Durban port but was stored 100km away in Port Shepstone, where it was stolen on November 8, 2021.

Jacob, who was the investigating officer responsible for the seizure of the drugs in Durban, said he was partially to blame for them going missing, but mainly shifted the blame to his superiors during his testimony.

The storage of the drugs is crucial for the commission, which is probing allegations that police officers have links to drug cartels, as Hawks Maj-Gen Hendrik Flynn, who investigated the theft, testified that it “was by design” that the drugs were stored in Port Shepstone, despite the risk associated with the office.

Jacob, despite admitting missteps in the operation, pushed back against inferences that could be made from Flynn’s statement that it was by “design” for the drugs to be stored in Port Shepstone only to be stolen five months later.

To prove this, Jacob said he was the one who ensured police were in contact with a key whistleblower with credible information about the theft.

He denied any role in the theft of drugs and referenced a polygraph test that cleared him. The test, however, was found to have had several errors.

Jacob said Port Shepstone was not his jurisdiction, and he could not move the drugs because Nyuswa had instructed that the drugs be moved to Port Shepstone. He conceded that he never asked Nyuswa to move the drugs.

Despite being the investigating officer, Jacob contended that Nyuswa, not him, had the power to decide where the drugs were stored.

Furthermore, Jacob said the KwaZulu-Natal Forensic Science Laboratory was also to blame because the lab failed to take custody of the drugs for processing five months after the seizure due to space constraints.

He pushed back against inferences that he failed to act diligently or intentionally, allowing for the drugs to get stolen.

“If I had known that was what would happen, I would have taken more steps,” he said.

Jacob testified that the decision to store the drugs in Port Shepstone was an instruction from Nyuswa, who made the call after he informed him he had exhausted all avenues and sought assistance for the storage of the seized drugs.

During cross-examination, Jacob, however, conceded his statement to Nyuswa about exhausting avenues was not factually correct because he did not enquire with three Durban police stations about storage capacity on the day of the operation, June 22, 2021.

“You lied to him when you said you exhausted all avenues; that was not factually correct,” commission chair Mbuyiseli Madlanga put to Jacob.

Jacob described the word “lied” as strong but conceded his statement to Nyuswa was not factually correct. However, he said he never suggested the drugs be stored outside of Durban but wanted Nyuswa to speak to senior officers and find a solution.

Jacob said he made the call to Nyuswa about the storage issue based on past experiences with local stations not wanting to store large amounts of drugs in their stations.

He cited an incident where drugs were previously stored in a holding cell due to a local station having exhibit space constraints and another where mandrax had to be hastily moved from a station after police officers became sick due to the presence of the narcotics.

In circumstances where the police stations have capacity, he said they inundate him with calls because the drugs do not get moved to the forensic laboratory for months due to their space constraints, and it becomes a headache for police station commanders because the drugs occupy exhibit storage space for a long time.

Based on that experience, Jacob said he wanted Nyuswa to resolve the storage issue.

The issue of storage in nearby stations on the day of the operation was contradicted by the storage of 999kg of cocaine stored in Maydon Wharf police station in Durban on July 30, 2021 — a month after Jacob seized the 541kg of cocaine.

Jacob said the 999kg was possibly accommodated in Maydon Wharf because the police operation fell within its precinct, while the seizure of the 541kg of cocaine was under Isipingo police station, at which the station commander allegedly declined to keep large exhibits.

Jacob denied that the storage of drugs in Port Shepstone was by choice.

“It was not by choice. I made an assumption [on Durban police stations’ storage capacity] based on my past experience and not on fact,” Jacob said.

Jacob said while police policy states exhibits should be stored at a local police station, the “reality on the ground” was that the police struggled to book large exhibits due to storage space constraints or security reasons.

He cited two cases in which he had to organise a container and place it in a police station to store exhibits, and how even then, everything was stolen.

Jacob described the theft of drugs as an “embarrassment” for the Hawks, which has sparked internal distrust among officers.

Hawks KZN head Maj-Gen Lesetja Senona is expected to testify at the commission.

• This story has been updated with new information.

Paris — Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska continued her fairytale run with a 7-6(4) 6-4 win over Diana Shnaider on Thursday, reaching her maiden Grand Slam final at the French Open and booking a title showdown with Russian Mirra Andreeva.

After 19-year-old Andreeva sealed a 6-1 6-3 semifinal win over Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk, it was Chwalinska’s turn to shine under the roof of Court Philippe Chatrier, and the 24-year-old delivered her best tennis when it mattered to go through.

Shnaider cut a frustrated figure in the opening set as her opponent came up with some stunning winners that showcased her power and precision, but the 22-year-old Russian hit back to recover a second break and draw level at 4-4.

Chwalinska turned up the style further in the battle of the left-handers, unleashing a backhand winner to hold in a marathon 11th game, before earning a set point in the ensuing tiebreak with the perfect lob.

The crowd favourite, playing in her ninth match at Roland Garros this year and sporting strapping on her left thigh, took the opening set to roaring applause before going toe-to-toe with Shnaider in the opening eight games of the next.

A decisive break in the next game gave Chwalinska a great opportunity to close out an absorbing contest in two sets, and the world No 114 stayed focused to finish her opponent off on her first match point with a forehand winner.

Stats SA data released on Thursday shows power output fell 1.7% from March, while electricity distributed across the country dropped 5.5% compared with April 2025, with seven of the nine provinces recording declines.

Stats SA’s electricity production figures do not fully capture self-generated renewable energy used by households and businesses, such as rooftop solar installations, said Nicolai Claassen, director of industry statistics at Stats SA.

“The IPPs [independent power producers] that generate electricity for distribution to Eskom on their grid are included in our statistics. We do have statistics on off-grid activity, but we do not cover that very well at the moment,” he said.

IPPs now contribute 10%-15% of electricity to the national grid after the launch of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPP) in 2011.

But the country still receives most of its electricity — most of it coal-fired — from power utility Eskom, which also accounts for about 20% of the power generated on the continent.

Eskom is planning to build a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel manufacturing facility with the capacity to produce at least 1 gigawatt at one of its sites in Mpumalanga — enough to supply the electricity needs of at least 750,000 homes — as part of a strategy to support localisation of the renewable energy value chain.

South Africa also imports electricity through the Southern African Power Pool, most of it from Mozambique, specifically from the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric dam.

In April, electricity inflows into the country rose by 14.5% year on year, while outflows decreased by 54.3%, Stats SA said.

Domestic electricity consumption fell 5% year on year in April and was down 1.3% compared with March. Seasonally adjusted electricity demand also declined by 0.8% in the three months ended April compared with the previous quarter.

“From what we can ascertain from our internal research, it could be reduced industrial demand that is causing the decline in electricity consumption,” Claassen said.

He cited the widely reported threat of closure for several of the country’s smelters under the weight of heavy energy costs.

The ferrochrome industry endured one of its most challenging years in recent memory in 2025, partly due to sharp increases in the price of electricity, the largest single input cost in production.

Amido fled and spent two nights in the mountains. Now he is sheltering in a local town hall, like other immigrants from Malawi and Mozambique, across the province, forced to hide from anti-immigrant mobs in several coastal towns.

South Africa has seen a wave of anti-immigrant protests, which have sometimes turned violent, in recent weeks. Mozambique said five of its citizens were killed in xenophobic attacks in Mossel Bay over the weekend.

Amido lives in Kleinmond, about 300km away.

“On the 31st, people came to my house, knocked on the door, and then took all my belongings,” said the 49-year-old, who had been in South Africa since February looking for work.

In Kleinmond town hall, he is with about 100 other immigrants, some of whom are hoping to join voluntary repatriation programmes set up by their governments.

Immigrants blamed for economic woes

Xenophobic attacks are a recurring problem in South Africa, where immigrants are often blamed for economic woes such as high unemployment and crime.

Despite the absence of any evidence for this claim, some politicians have tended to lend it credence in an effort to score populist votes in elections, such as the local polls coming up at year end.

“As we work to build a safer … and more prosperous society, we need to address the challenge of migration,” President Cyril Ramaphosa told parliament on Tuesday, while also condemning recent xenophobic violence.

Grant Cohen, a ward councillor for Kleinmond, said that immigration authorities had visited the town in recent weeks to check restaurants and other businesses for undocumented workers.

But many of the immigrants sheltering at the town hall are in the country legally, he said.

“We’ve got kids here at the moment who should be in school, who have been in school in Kleinmond … [but] now want to flee the country out of fear and intimidation,” said Cohen.

“I don’t believe that residents should take things into their own hands.”

Protesters with knives and sticks

Michael Markson, a 31-year-old from Malawi, said he spent one night sleeping in the mountains after fleeing the informal settlement where he had lived for about a year on Saturday.

My landlord came telling me that I should evacuate because if they find us, they’re going to kill us.

Michael Markson

“My landlord came telling me that I should evacuate because if they find us, they’re going to kill us,” he said.

The next day, one of his friends called his boss, who brought them food as they hid in the woods.

Markson said he was close enough to see a large crowd of protesters in town, some carrying knives and sticks.

Now he is waiting for assistance to travel home, which he can’t afford.

“In our country there’s no good economy … [but] it’s better than living in a community where your life is under threat.”

Reuters

Maputo — Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo has signed a new law requiring 15% state ownership in all mining ventures and local processing of minerals, tightening control over its resources as demand for battery materials grows.

Mozambique is the world’s third-largest graphite producer, a key material used in batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage.

The mining law, approved by parliament in May, aims to strengthen Mozambique’s “management of strategic resources in defence of the national interest”, according to a government notice dated June 3.

“The state, through the National Mining Company (ENM), shall have a minimum, free‑carried and non‑dilutable participation of 15% in all mining projects, at any stage of the value chain,” reads part of the new law seen by Reuters on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear whether the new rules would apply to existing mines, which are mostly covered by long-term agreements.

The mines ministry was not immediately available to comment.

The move places Mozambique among a growing number of African countries, including top continental lithium producer Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s leading cobalt producer and major global copper supplier, which are tightening control over raw exports for greater economic benefit from their resources.

Mozambique has one of the largest graphite deposits in the world at Syrah Resources’ Balama operations in the north of the country. According to the US Geological Survey, China and Madagascar are the top two producers.

The world’s largest ruby mine, Montepuez, owned by Gemfields, is also located in northern Mozambique, and the country also has significant coal assets previously owned by Rio Tinto and Brazil’s Vale.

The new regulations prohibit the export of unprocessed or semi‑processed mineral products, except where they are covered by a specific ministerial authorisation, based on approved plans to eventually process locally.

Paris ― Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva powered into her maiden Grand Slam final with a ruthless 6-1 6-3 victory over Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk in a politically charged French Open semifinal on Thursday.

The eighth seed seized control from the outset and never loosened her grip on the contest, overwhelming Kostyuk with her depth and aggression on Court Philippe Chatrier to set up a title clash against compatriot Diana Shnaider or Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska.

As has become customary for Ukrainian players since Russia’s invasion of their country in 2022, Kostyuk did not pose for the traditional pre-match photograph with her opponent and there was no handshake at the net before or after the match.

Andreeva, 19, raced into a 4-0 lead in the opening set and barely looked back in the third meeting between the two players, the Ukrainian having won the first two.

Kostyuk briefly threatened to make a contest of it in the second set, but the Russian swiftly snuffed out any hopes of a comeback before serving out the match to complete a dominant display.

“I’m still very nervous, very nervous coming to this match as she’s had an amazing season, she hadn’t lost on clay so that put pressure,” said Andreeva.

“She’s an amazing player, a tough opponent, so I’m super happy with the way I played. I’m happy I got revenge for the Madrid final and to reach my first Grand Slam final.

“All of these feelings combined, I’ve never felt anything like this, I’m very excited about the last match here in Paris.”

Kostyuk seemed to struggle with early nerves and windy conditions, handing her opponent the first break with a double fault and an unforced backhand error while Andreeva picked up steam.

The Ukrainian was out of sorts but briefly put up a fight in the second set when she broke back for 4-3, only to drop serve in the next game and continue to pepper the court with unforced errors.

A final forehand wide gave Andreeva a deserved win after 1hr 16min of a one-sided encounter.

“The conditions were tough, very windy, I couldn’t understand which direction it was going, but I’m happy I was able to stay focused,” said Andreeva after both players had continued to play when the roof was being closed.

“I was ready to accept anything that happens. It felt like a day when anything could happen. I told myself I would fight, and if she had to win she would have to work for it. With this mindset, I ended up winning and I’m very happy.”

Story audio is generated using AI

Bafana’s last World Cup preparatory match against Jamaica will be played behind closed doors in Pachuca on Saturday (7am, SA time).

Bafana, who have won just one of their past five games, with two draws and two defeats, need a morale-boosting win over the Reggae Boys before they take on one of the hosts, Mexico, in the World Cup opener, a repeat of the 2010 World Cup opening fixture on home soil, at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on Thursday (9pm SA time).

History marginally favours Bafana against Jamaica, as they won one of their five previous meetings with four draws. South Africa’s only victory against the Reggae Boys came in their last meeting, in which they recorded a 2-0 win in a pre-2010 World Cup friendly in Germany. Surprise Moriri and Siyabonga Nomvethe were on target there.

Bafana’s other Group A opponents are Czechia and South Korea. Mexico co-host this global showpiece with the US and Canada until July 19.

Going into this warm-up fixture, Jamaica, who are ranked 71st, 11 places behind Bafana, come from a 3-0 thumping by Nigeria in London last week. Jamaica did not qualify for this World Cup after losing the intercontinental playoff to DR Congo in March.

Bafana coach Hugo Broos didn’t want to reveal whether his starting line-up against Jamaica will be the same as in the opener against Mexico.

“I will not make declarations about the starting line-ups, but I already have something in my head, and I will see if we can use that for the first game against Mexico,” Broos answered when quizzed about whether the starting XI against Jamaica would be close to the one that will start against Mexico.

The Cape side were dealt a heavy blow when Feinberg-Mngomezulu suffered an ankle injury during the Stormers’ United Rugby Championship (URC) quarterfinal win over Cardiff in Cape Town last week.

This unfortunate turn of events has thrust Matthee into the spotlight ahead of the Stormers’ semifinal clash against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Saturday (kickoff 6.30pm).

“Injuries are part of the game,” Hlungwani said. “It’s always tough losing players, but it’s also an opportunity for other players. Sacha is injured, so Jurie comes in. It’s part of the game and something we feel we can handle.

“If you look at our first URC game against Leinster, Jurie was the flyhalf that started, and it worked really well for us then. Jurie is ready to step in.

“He’s never really been out of the team. He’s played tough games for us, so we’re quite confident he’ll come and do his thing.”

Hlungwani said Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s absence would not force the Stormers into a major rethink about their strategy for Saturday.

“We really like players to play to their strengths,” he said. “Jurie will fit in nicely. If it changes anything, great, because he’ll be playing to his strengths. But there’s no particular change of plans in terms of how we play.

“You don’t want to play in your own half. You want to get into the opposition 22 and convert your opportunities. The team that spends more time in the opposition 22 usually has a better chance of scoring.”

Hlungwani said his team will have a tough challenge in Dublin.

“We all understand that we’re going away to play a pretty strong outfit. They’re playing a strong team on their home ground, with lots of internationals. It’s going to be a mountain to climb.

“They’re a very good team, well coached, highly experienced — and there are very few gaps to exploit, to be honest.”

The Stormers got some good news on the eve of their departure to Ireland when lock Ruben van Heerden (concussion) and centre Dan du Plessis (knee) were both declared fit.

“Ruben is travelling. Dan is also travelling,” Hlungwani said. “Seabelo Senatla, unfortunately, is not looking good because of concussion protocols.”

Stormers flank Paul de Villiers says he is looking forward to facing the Irish giants.

“This is what the team has worked for all season: to get to the semifinals,” he said. “To now play against Leinster, an outstanding team, makes it an even bigger occasion for us.

“For me, it’s a wonderful prospect. It’s my first semifinal, and it’s for the Stormers. It’s great to test yourself against the best.”

Stormers head coach John Dobson says his team must up their conversion rate once they enter the opposition’s 22. The Cape side had several entries into Cardiff’s 22, but Ruhan Nel and Stefan Ungerer were held up over the line.

“I give Cardiff credit for their fight and the way they came back in the second half,” Dobson said. “I don’t think we played poorly. I know with 15 minutes to go it was still an anxious game, but I thought our processes were pretty good.

“The game should have been resolved by halftime. That’s the truth.”

Saturday’s semifinals: Glasgow Warriors vs Bulls; Leinster vs Stormers.

Dubai/Beirut — The pro-Iran Hezbollah movement rejected a new ceasefire in Lebanon on Thursday, and Israel said it would not withdraw troops from the country, undermining US President Donald Trump’s efforts to halt fighting there to forge peace with Tehran.

Iran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal with Washington and has suggested in recent days that it could intervene directly in support of its proxy Hezbollah if Israel keeps up or escalates attacks there.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said the ceasefire would come into force within 24 hours of all concerned parties approving it. However, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected the Washington declaration, insisting “resistance will continue”.

There was no immediate response from Israel, Lebanon or the US to Qassem’s remarks. Hezbollah is not a party to the US-brokered agreement reached between Israel and the Lebanese government on Wednesday but would be required to halt attacks.

Israel kept up strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday, and defence minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would not be withdrawing from the area or halting operations in the country, which they invaded in March in parallel with the war in Iran.

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force — which established Hezbollah in 1982 — said “the minimum demand of the resistance” was Israel’s withdrawal to positions it held before the war began.

Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the group opened fire in support of Tehran as it came under US-Israeli attack. The war has continued despite several ceasefires declared from Washington since April.

Separate ceasefire

The attempt to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon comes after a flare-up in violence across the region that put Trump’s efforts to end the war in new jeopardy.

Iranian and US forces traded attacks in the Gulf on Wednesday in one of the most intense bouts of fighting since a separate ceasefire halted large-scale US-Israeli bombing of Iran in early April.

Iranian forces struck Kuwait, damaging its airport and injuring dozens of people, authorities said, while the US military carried out strikes near the Strait of Hormuz. The strait, through which a fifth of the global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally flow, remains largely closed more than three months after the US and Israel launched their strikes on Iran.

Oil prices fell by about 3% on Thursday on hopes that a Lebanon ceasefire could help Washington and Iran find a diplomatic off-ramp from their war.

Trump, under pressure at home to end the war and bring down fuel prices, suggested there could be progress in negotiations with Iran soon.

“If it happens, it could happen over the weekend,” Trump told reporters in the White House’s Oval Office on Wednesday, without elaborating on what he expected to happen within that timeframe.

Trump said that parties were working to separate the issue of reopening the strait from the conflict in Lebanon.

‘Defensive strikes’

Wednesday’s strikes on Kuwait damaged airport facilities and diplomatic missions, killing one person and injuring more than 60 others, Kuwaiti authorities and state media said.

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said they did not fire at Kuwait’s airport and blamed the destruction on US interceptor missiles that failed to hit their targets, according to Iranian state media. The US military said Iranian drones targeted the airport deliberately.

Iranian media reported the Revolutionary Guards also attacked the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and a US airbase. US Central Command denied its bases had been hit and said Iranian ballistic missiles failed to strike their targets in the region.

Centcom said it had carried out a new round of “defensive strikes” in southern Iran, targeted missile launch sites and Iranian boats seeking to lay mines, and conducted strikes on Qeshm Island near the strait after attempted Iranian attacks.

Tentative agreement

Last week, Iran and the US signalled progress towards a tentative initial agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait, but the two sides have yet to sign off on the deal, which would leave more complex negotiations for later.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said on Thursday that Iran’s enemies had already been defeated on the battlefield and were now seeking to sow internal divisions.

Khamenei has not been seen in public since he succeeded his father, who was killed in an airstrike at the start of the war.

In addition to Tehran conditioning a deal on an end to fighting in Lebanon, it also wants access to billions of dollars in oil revenue, waivers on sanctions on crude exports, a lifting of a US blockade on its ports and leverage over the strait.

Trump has said his top priority is to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes.

Reuters

Story audio is generated using AI

The Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac) re-enrolled the R24.9m Nulane fraud and corruption case in the Bloemfontein magistrate’s court on Thursday.

This follows the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) last year which upheld an appeal by the state against the judgment of the Free State High Court in 2023 that discharged the six individual accused and two accused.

The SCA also ordered that the accused may be retried for the same offences as if they had not been previously arraigned.

Former Free State agriculture department head Limakatso Moorosi, who did not apply for a discharge, was acquitted by the high court in 2023 while her co-accused were discharged.

The other accused are:

• alleged Gupta associate Iqbal Sharma;
• former head of the Free State department of rural development Peter Thabethe;
• former provincial agriculture department CFO Seipati Dhlamini;
• Sharma’s brother in law and a representative of Nulane Dinesh Patel;
• Islandsite director Ronica Ragavan; and
• the entities Nulane Investment and Islandsite.

Idac spokesperson Henry Mamothame said the accused’s bid to have the Constitutional Court overturn the SCA’s ruling was also dismissed before the state summoned the accused to court for the matter to be reinstated.

“The matter was postponed to September 22 for the disclosure of the docket,” he said.

All the accused were in court.

TimesLIVE

Bengaluru — Honeywell’s Quantinuum is set to make its US market debut later on Thursday after strong investor interest helped the quantum computing company raise $1.68bn in an upsized initial public offering.

Breakthroughs in the fast-growing technology have spurred bets that quantum machines could eventually outperform conventional computers on certain complex tasks.

Sentiment was also buoyed after the US government last month announced a $2bn initiative to take equity stakes in nine quantum computing companies, including a planned $100m investment in Quantinuum.

“The investment case is centred on the long-term potential of quantum computing and its potential role in future computing infrastructure,” said IPOX Schuster analyst Kat Liu.

“The support is meaningful because quantum computing is increasingly viewed as a strategic technology with implications for national security, AI, communications and advanced computing.”

IonQ

The sector has also drawn investor interest as increasingly sophisticated and resource-intensive AI systems fuel expectations that demand for quantum computers could eventually gain traction.

Shares of peer IonQ have surged about 52% this year, giving the company a market value of about $25.47bn, according to LSEG data.

Broomfield, Colorado-based Quantinuum had sold 28-million shares at $60 each, above its marketed range of $53-$55 per share. The company earlier this week raised the shares on sale to 26.5-million.

The debut comes as the US new listings market regains impetus, though investor appetite remains concentrated in technology and other high-growth sectors.

Computational problems

Founded in 2021 through the merger of quantum computing operations of Honeywell and software specialist Cambridge Quantum, Quantinuum develops quantum hardware and software systems designed to solve complex computational problems.

“Quantinuum also benefits from Honeywell’s backing and has expanded beyond hardware into software, cybersecurity, and quantum networking applications. Commercial adoption remains limited, but investors are primarily buying into the long-term opportunity,” said Liu.

Honeywell will own about 48.1% of the combined voting power in the company upon completion of the offering, Quantinuum has said in a regulatory filing.

Still, Quantinuum’s commercial revenue remains highly concentrated.

Japan’s Riken research institute accounted for about 60% of the company’s 2025 revenue, highlighting the industry’s continued reliance on government and research spending.

Edward Best, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, said investors should monitor whether the company broadens its customer base and increases the number and value of commercial contracts over time.

The industry also continues to grapple with high development costs, technological complexity and an uncertain timeline for widespread commercial adoption.

JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are the lead active book-running managers for the offering.

New York — SpaceX has publicly set a $135 price for shares in its initial public offering (IPO), upending the longstanding Wall Street price-discovery apparatus and underscoring Elon Musk’s determination to raise record sums his way.

The company’s decision to publish a price late on Wednesday, a week before its landmark offering, has few if any precedents among major IPOs in the US and reflects Musk’s standing in the financial world as an adventurer with a golden touch — even as the capital raise will value SpaceX at lofty multiples.

SpaceX’s amended IPO filing confirms a Reuters report on the $135 price from earlier this week. The company is aiming to raise $75bn, the most yet for an IPO, in a deal that would value it at $1.75-trillion, immediately placing it among the top 10 most valuable US-listed firms.

The company will kick off an investor roadshow on Thursday, with pricing expected on June 11; trading in shares will begin on the Nasdaq the next day.

Musk has rewritten the IPO playbook for SpaceX in many other ways, from planning to give retail investors a larger role in allocations to pushing for early index inclusion, and structuring governance to preserve strong founder control.

“Nothing about this IPO is normal in any course or sense, but then again this is the largest IPO in history so maybe that is not surprising,” said an investor who is planning to buy into the IPO.

On Wall Street, there has been a rush to get a piece of the deal, given Musk’s reputation and his control of an offering that stands to generate millions of dollars in fees. This is despite concern about the sky-high valuations that SpaceX will garner.

The prospective investor said there has been a sense that major firms are “posturing” by saying “we put the money in early”, a position that reflects and reaffirms Musk’s leverage over investors.

SpaceX lacks a clear public market benchmark, given the paucity of public space companies and the company’s interests across aerospace, telecom and defence. SpaceX posted a net loss of $4.94bn in 2025, even as revenue rose 33% to $18.67bn.

“On the face of it, a 90x+ revenue multiple is high by any standard,” said Tim Hatt, head of research and consulting at GSMA Intelligence, the research arm of global telecoms industry body GSMA. “But then again, SpaceX is not traditional in any way and there are no true public comparables.”

Relationships

The road show is where companies and their bankers typically sound out investors to arrive at a price range for their share sale. The process emphasises bankers’ relationships with potential investors and their understanding of the market for the coming offering.

After a series of testing-the-waters meetings with investors ahead of the roadshow, SpaceX indicated it is looking for a valuation of about $1.75-trillion, while some investors sought $1.5-trillion or less.

An institutional investor who banks with Goldman Sachs said he tried to buy shares in the IPO but was told SpaceX IPO allotments are a “David Solomon level decision”, referring to the firm’s CEO. The investor’s banker suggested he buy after the company goes public.

Other aspects of the SpaceX offering stand out. Major international banks including Mizuho, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Barclays have been urged to focus on lining up wealthy individual buyers in their home countries. In the past, little attention was paid to individual investors, as bankers sought out feedback from large asset managers such as Fidelity Investments and powerful hedge funds such as Citadel.

Reuters previously reported that the company is considering allocating as much as 30% of the offering to individual investors, an unusually large retail tranche aimed at tapping into Musk’s mystique while also broadening ownership of the company.

“Why would you own it? It’s because of the cachet that Elon Musk brings,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth. He said he isn’t buying the shares: “I’m interested in it as a sideshow.”

His comments came a day after Lebanon and Israel said they had agreed to implement a ceasefire during talks in Washington. The deal is contingent on a cessation of fire from militant group Hezbollah, which rejected the plan.

In a statement, Katz said troops would remain in its so-called security zone in southern Lebanon, including in the area of Beaufort Castle, a 900-year-old fortress captured by Israel on Saturday.

He said Israel would continue to “dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area” while Israel had “freedom of action, backed by the US, to strike in Beirut in response to attacks on Israeli communities and territory.”

Lebanon and Israel agreed on Wednesday to a new US-backed ceasefire in Lebanon. They had previously agreed to a cessation of hostilities in ​April that was then extended in May, but violence has continued.

Reuters

Singapore — South Korea’s refiners boosted jet fuel exports in May back to pre-Iran war levels, helped by a recovery in crude imports and encouraged by robust refining margins, analysts and trade sources said.

The rebound from one of Asia’s top fuel exporters, seen in a slew of spot cargo sales, has helped ease concerns about tight supply and done much to cool prices in the region.

Spot premiums for the aviation fuel have plunged 50% to around $2 a barrel over the past two weeks. That compares with a record high of more than $20 in March.

South Korea is estimated to have shipped out between 1.1-million and 1.2-million tonnes (8.67-million barrels to 9.46-million barrels) of jet fuel in May, the highest level since August, data from Kpler, Vortexa and a trade source showed.

According to Kpler, May volumes surged 36% from a one-year low marked in April. Its data also shows that South Korean shipments have accounted for 30% of jet fuel imports in Asia Pacific for the year so far, up from 23% for all of 2025.

In addition to the sharply lower premiums for aviation fuel, regrade spreads between 10ppm sulphur diesel and jet fuel have flipped to slight discounts, LSEG data showed.

Crude supply

The US-Israeli war on Iran has led to a de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil shipments used to pass, and the disruptions in crude supply have resulted in lower runs for Asia’s refiners.

But South Korean refineries’ crude imports recovered to around 80% of pre-disruption levels in May, said Vortexa’s head of APAC analysis Ivan Mathews, adding that he expects them to increase jet fuel exports in June due to higher refining output.

Average crude runs for the country’s refineries in May and June are estimated to be higher than in April at 2.4-million barrels per day (bpd) or more, although they remain lower than pre-war levels of 2.9 million bpd, said FGE NexantECA senior analyst Samuel Kong.

South Korea’s refining throughput stood at 2.18-million bpd in April, government data showed.

Crude arrivals at the world’s fourth-largest importer rebounded in May to 2.27-million bpd after hitting 1.51-million bpd in April, the lowest since 2013, according to Kpler data, with volumes mostly from Saudi Arabia, the US and the UAE.

June volumes

A fifth of South Korean jet fuel exports in May were bound for the US, according to Kpler data, with traders expecting June volumes to hold steady.

Vortexa’s Mathews said arbitrage is favourable for South Korean refiners to send jet fuel to the US West Coast, which could lead to higher production and exports.

US West Coast jet fuel swap prices have been trading at more than $20 a barrel higher than those for Asia since end-May, Reuters calculations showed, up from $10 a barrel higher two weeks ago.

Costs to ship around 300,000 barrels of refined fuels on this route were at $7 a barrel, SSY pricing data on LSEG showed.

Story audio is generated using AI

Bafana Bafana are winning friends in Mexico ahead of the World Cup kickoff.

Videos shared on social media show members of the South African squad lining up to sign autographs and have pictures taken with a lone young Mexican boy who visited the team hotel.

Coach Hugo Broos gave the boy a jersey, which the players signed.

Other videos show the team’s second open training session, this time at the 26,000-seat Estadio Hidalgo, nicknamed “El Huracán” (The Hurricane), where a few hundred local football supporters arrived to watch the session.

The stadium is the home ground of topflight Liga MX side Club de Fútbol Pachuca.

🇲🇽🇿🇦 La selección de Sudafrica hizo fila para sacarse fotos y firmarle la camiseta al único nene que fue a verlos al hotel.

GENIOS pic.twitter.com/TE8C27SytI

— 🥊𝕳 BARRAS DEL MUNDO ⚽🍺 (@Barras_LATAM) June 3, 2026

The South Africans are earning a reputation for approachability and friendliness in Mexico.

Bafana’s first training session on Wednesday was held on the fields of their training base at Universidad del Futbol y Ciencias del Deporte in Pachuca, after their arrival in Mexico City in the early hours of the morning.

3 de junio de 2026.
El entrenamiento de los @bafanabafana en el #Huracan de #Pachuca pic.twitter.com/tb83VgHR0r

— Charlie P (@CharliePM10) June 4, 2026

The South Africans meet co-hosts Mexico at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City in the opening game on June 11 (9pm SA time), a rematch of the first fixture when South Africa hosted the 2010 edition.

Bafana’s remaining two Group A games are against Czechia (Czech Republic) in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 18 (6pm SA time), and South Korea in Guadalupe, Mexico, on June 24 (3am on June 25 SA time).

🧵Grok Q&A: “🇿🇦 Bafana Bafana Open Training in Mexico — Fans Show Up Strong!”

I asked @grok for reaction to the viral video:

• Bafana Bafana hold open training session at Estadio Hidalgo in Pachuca
• Mexican fans pack the stands to watch the squad train ahead of World Cup…

— Zenzeni Sangweni (@Zenzeni_sangwen) June 4, 2026

Bafana’s departure from Johannesburg was delayed by a day from Sunday to Monday over the controversial non-arrival of their US visas by the weekend due to an apparent South African Football Association bungle.

Broos wanted at least 10 days before the opening match because he said it takes that long to adjust to high altitude.

🏟️ | ¡Gran día se vivió en el Huracán!

Nuestra afición disfrutó del entrenamiento de la selección de Sudáfrica en el Estadio Hidalgo. Entreno, firmas, fotos y mucha alegría.

Gracias por visitarnos y compartir con nuestra gente @BafanaBafana 🇿🇦 @gobiernohidalgo pic.twitter.com/Ls2azaW66A

— Club de Futbol Pachuca (@Tuzos) June 4, 2026

Mexico City is at 2,240m above sea level, 500m above Johannesburg (1,750m).

Bafana’s training base in Pachuca is at 2,430m.

Fifa’s first 48-team World Cup is being co-hosted by the US and Canada.

SUDÁFRICA YA ENTRENA EN EL HIDALGO 🇿🇦⚽️👋🏼
Los Bafana Bafana trabajan ya en el estadio de Pachuca de cara a la @fifaworldcup pic.twitter.com/6JnW69ZMNI

— LosCorresponsalesMX (@_Corresponsales) June 3, 2026

𝗦𝗨𝗗Á𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔 𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔 𝗗𝗘𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝗠𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔 𝗘𝗡 𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗛𝗨𝗖𝗔

Los Bafana Bafana calientan motores para encarar al combinado Tricolor el próximo 11 de junio en el juego inaugural del Mundial 2026. El césped del estadio Hidalgo recibió a la oncena… pic.twitter.com/pIWh1A6vDR

— amhidalgo (@amdigitalhgo) June 3, 2026

It would be a special time to do it, as the tournament synonymous with Jack Nicklaus marks its 50th anniversary this week at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio.

“It’s a wonderful tournament,” McIlroy said. “Obviously a great list of champions on a wonderful golf course. I haven’t quite figured it out yet. It’s frustrated me over my career. But hopefully this is the week I put it all together.”

McIlroy, 37, has been idle for two weeks since finishing in a tie for seventh place at the PGA Championship.

“Yeah, I feel a bit like a part-timer these days. But, no, I had a couple weeks off. We got ourselves settled into our house in London for the summer. So it was nice to be over there for the last 10 days,” he said.

“A bit of practice. Stopped off at Shinnecock on the way here on Monday. Scouted it a little and played. So I’m excited for a good tournament here. I missed this one last year. It’s good to be back. So the course is as hard as ever, so [I’m] looking forward to the challenge this week.”

The fairways pinch in right around the spots where I would be finishing driver. So it’s frustrated me in a way that I feel like my biggest weapon is in some way neutralised here

Rory McIlroy

Shinnecock in Southampton, New York, is the site of this month’s US Open, where McIlroy will attempt to win a seventh Major title after successfully defending his Masters crown in April.

In his most recent appearance at the Memorial Tournament back in 2024, McIlroy finished T15 and 10 shots behind Scottie Scheffler. Scheffler, the World No 1, defended his title last year.

McIlroy said winning the Memorial is one of his top remaining career goals. He has finished inside the top 10 on four occasions, including a tie for fourth place in 2016.

“I would say here and Tiger’s [Woods] event at Riviera, they’re the two that I would love to win. I’ve been lucky enough to win at Bay Hill, but not while Arnold [Palmer] was alive. So I always thought it would be cool to win here and take that little walk up the hill off the 18th green and shake Jack’s hand.

“Also, Jack and I share a nice history. We’ve known each other now for nearly 20 years — or I’ve known him for nearly 20 years. He’s been nothing but great to me and my family. So this is certainly one I would love to get done.”

McIlroy knows what he has to do to earn that handshake on Sunday.

“For being such a long golf course, I feel like it takes [the] driver out of my hand a lot, which, you know, I pride myself on that being one of my biggest weapons. The fairways pinch in right around the spots where I would be finishing driver. So it’s frustrated me in a way that I feel like my biggest weapon is in some way neutralised here.

“It’s just about me being a little more disciplined and not being so aggressive with my strategy.” — Field Level Media

Reuters

The country’s digital fraud landscape has become more complex, with generative AI accelerating the scale and sophistication of criminal activity and enabling fraudsters to target consumers and businesses with greater precision and speed, TransUnion said in its latest Top Fraud Trends report.

AI investment has grown exponentially in recent years, and while businesses in South Africa figure out how to make the most of the new technology, the government is under pressure to create rules to protect rights.

The government is working on a new AI policy which will be finalised and released for public comment by the end of this year after pulling an earlier draft — ironically compiled with the use of AI — which hallucinated at least six of its citations.

A seven-member expert review panel, including top university academics and led by Wits University Prof Benjamin Rosman, will guide the process.

Report

The TransUnion report said South African consumers are increasingly facing co-ordinated, identity-driven and cross-channel attacks similar to those seen in mature digital economies. One third of South consumers who lost money from digital fraud in the past year said the losses stemmed from third-party seller scams on legitimate e-commerce platforms.

“This signals a market where criminals are exploiting established trust, active accounts and verified digital relationships and is a clear break from global fraud patterns typically dominated by phishing and vishing — fraudulent phone calls or voice messages designed to deceive consumers into sharing sensitive information or sending money,” TransUnion Africa senior director of fraud product management Amritha Reddy said.

“In South Africa, fraudsters succeed where trust is already established, particularly inside mainstream digital platforms where consumers reasonably expect safety and legitimacy.

“As GenAI accelerates the sophistication and scale of criminal operations, the threat landscape is evolving faster than ever for consumers and businesses. Addressing this requires a new generation of identity-centric defences that combine advanced analytics, adaptive authentication and multilayered digital fraud detection.”

The rate of suspected digital fraud where the consumer was in the country was the most prevalent among government transactions, at 12.5%, highlighting risks tied to public-sector digitalisation.

“Digitalisation has improved access to public services, but it has also created new risks for fraud. Fraudsters are leveraging official government branding and service-related messages to impersonate the state and deceive citizens,” Reddy said.

The report shows South Africa is one of the few countries where the highest rate of suspected digital fraud attempts happen at account login, suggesting attackers are increasingly trying to compromise existing accounts, in contrast to other countries where new account creation is a key focus for fraudsters.

“This means vendors and financial institutions need to expand their fraud prevention strategies beyond the new customer onboarding phase, continuing to implement verification throughout the consumer lifecycle, but without the unnecessary friction that will see genuine consumers seeking alternative sites,” Reddy said.

Business Day

Without an approved vaccine, stopping the virus from spreading will depend largely on the launch of excellent contact tracing and asking individuals who may be infected or have been in contact with infected people to isolate themselves. But here is the catch. The current Ebola outbreak in the northeastern and eastern provinces of the vast DRC presents significant challenges for health workers to respond adequately given that the areas are conflict-ridden and experience a worsening humanitarian crisis.

As the virus now outpaces the response, the question remains: will the region be able to contain it? In this piece, we hope to demonstrate first that the African continent should take full ownership of this public health emergency and find solutions to it. Failure to do so will have direct consequences.

Second, we urge the international community not to turn away as the virus engulfs East Africa, because in an interconnected world infectious diseases do not respect borders and no country is immune to transmission.

And finally, that Africa needs resilient health systems, skills exchange and proper governance to be better prepared for future public health emergencies in the face of global aid cuts.

Context of the Ebola outbreak

Given the vast size of the DRC, the Ebola outbreak is now concentrated in three provinces, Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, all in the volatile east of the country. It is well known that the eastern part of the country is engulfed in a bitter conflict and that this makes it difficult for healthcare workers to carry out their work efficiently. What complicates the matter further is the fact that the ravaging conflict forces residents to flee their homes, increasing the risk of the virus spreading throughout the country.

The health systems in the east of the DRC are either nonexistent or do not function at a level they should be due to the conflict. Already, Uganda has been affected by the spread of the virus and, as per the director of the African Centres for Disease Control & Prevention (Africa CDC), Jean Kaseya, 10 other East and Central African countries are at risk. Eight of them share a border with the vast central African country. Misinformation on the virus that continues to spread also makes it difficult for healthcare workers to operate efficiently.

Just a few days back residents of affected communities set fire to a section of the hospital used to treat Ebola patients due to anger from the family and friends of a young man who died from the virus, after they were prevented from taking the body for burial. It has long been established that the body of a dead Ebola victim is highly infectious, and healthcare workers need to ensure bodies are buried in a proper manner to avoid the spread of the virus. It is important that the affected communities are educated about the virus to contain the spread of misinformation.

Africa needs to own its health security

The formation of Africa CDC in 2016 was a major step in the health transformation of the African continent. In 2022, when the AU granted the Africa CDC powers to be a fully autonomous agency, it heralded an era in which Africa sought to be in charge of its own health sovereignty. While we should all commend the agency for being autonomous, we should in the same vein rally African states and the private sector to invest heavily in the agency. Autonomy means nothing if it cannot undertake operations due to fiscal strain. This risks reversing the strides made in public health.

We are in an era of pandemics, and it is therefore important that agencies such as the Africa CDC are equipped with financial power to address the health issues that confront the continent. On a more country-to-country scale, the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2013-2016 Ebola crisis in West Africa taught us the important lesson that health systems in African countries are fragile and unable to contain public health emergencies without external support. There has never been a more appropriate time to uplift our health systems, but the lack of proper governance remains an Achilles heel in the quest to strengthen these systems.

Read: EDITORIAL | African nations must lead Ebola response

On the other hand, health partnerships between African countries, whether bilateral or multilateral, need to be upscaled. Public health diplomacy in the region remains low, and this affects how countries respond to public health emergencies. When the Ebola outbreak was announced, South Africa, which is the most successful African country in public health diplomacy, pledged a $5m contribution to the Africa CDC to support the continent’s Ebola response.

This gesture from the South African government and its people comes at a time when President Cyril Ramaphosa is the official AU champion on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This is not the first time South Africa has made such a pledge; it did so during the 2013-2016 Ebola crisis too. Other African countries need to step up their public health diplomacy too. The funding cuts in global aid from Western nations mean Africa’s public health system remains vulnerable and unable to respond to public health emergencies. We further call on universities in the region to step up efforts in terms of collaboration.

For example, South Africa is home to 26 public universities, several of which possess globally recognised health and medical research capabilities. In recent years these universities have been at the forefront of pioneering ground-breaking medical research in HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis treatment through specialised research centres and strong international partnerships. Importantly, the universities have been extending their influence beyond lecture halls to global health policy and increasingly becoming strategic instruments of South Africa’s public health diplomacy.

Universities in the region can play an even greater role in confronting public health emergencies, not only through cutting-edge research but also through cross-border scientific collaboration, medical training and knowledge exchange programmes. Despite this critical role, universities are also confronted by challenges relating to funding constraints as well as the need to navigate ever-changing geopolitical factors that undermine the funding of critical research initiatives and health partnerships. Nevertheless, universities remain indispensable to Africa’s public health diplomacy agenda.

The failure of Africa to take ownership of its health security architecture will be fatal. In an era where Western nations have withdrawn aid to reroute the funds to other pressing issues, African leaders have a moral and legal obligation to uplift poor public health systems.

• Makgana is CEO at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. Kadima and Mokoena are academics at Wits University. They write in their personal capacities.

Bengaluru — Broadcom shares sank about 12% in premarket trading on Thursday, a day after the company missed quarterly revenue views and disappointed investors’ lofty expectations of stronger momentum from the AI boom.

The chipmaker could lose more than $285bn in market cap at the current price of $418.83 if losses hold.

Broadcom vies with Nvidia, whose graphics processors remain the gold standard for AI workloads, underscoring intensifying competition at the top of the AI chip market.

Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the selloff reflects “a classic case of very high expectations meeting a market that wanted perfection”, adding that investors are punishing results that fall short of what they wanted.

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, meanwhile, nudged up shipment forecasts to more than 10 gigawatts of AI chips in 2027, while sticking to the company’s long-term target of $100bn in AI revenue.

TD Cowen analysts said reiterating previously ambitious AI revenue targets without raising them in a market expecting “material beats and raises” is likely to disappoint investors, adding the quarter leaves “lingering questions” around execution and ramp timelines.

Surging memory chip prices due to a supply crunch have strained the broader industry. However, the company’s executives said Broadcom is “very comfortable”, having secured supply for 2026 and 2027.

Deepened ties

Investor sentiment was also dented by Broadcom’s downbeat outlook for third-quarter AI chip revenue, reinforcing concerns that while demand remains strong, growth may not be ramping as quickly as markets had anticipated.

Competition is also heating up as rivals such as Marvell Technology expand their custom chip businesses and deepen ties with hyperscaler clients.

Marvell shares were down about 4%.

Broadcom’s core business remained strong, with AI semiconductor revenue rising 143% year-on-year to $10.8bn in the quarter.

The stock trades at 29.90 times its forward earnings estimates compared with Marvell’s 61.70 multiple and the broader S&P 500 index’s 27.94, according to LSEG data.

Hundreds of owners and spectators were in attendance to view more than 40 vehicles of different vintage and types that heeded the call to line up along Firwood Avenue, demonstrating South Africans’ deep love for all things automotive. Steamy brews and mouthwatering confectionery were served up by the Bakehouse team.

“Part of our vision at Ignition TV is to create opportunities to connect with our audience beyond the screen. The response to our first Coffee & Cars event has been incredible, and the fact that people are still posting and talking about it shows the strength of South Africa’s car community,” said Brandon Maary, Head of Channel at Ignition TV.

According to Marco Ferreira, Director at Bakehouse Group, the collaboration with Ignition TV came about in an organic way.

“We were talking over coffee and exploring how do we extend the collaboration into cars because there are so many different groups that are separate from one another.”

“We wanted to have a united front so everybody could come here and speak about cars, and it’s only fitting we did it over coffee, because it’s a great pairing. As the turnout shows, I think people are in support of that.”

Last Sunday’s get-together is just the beginning, with more Coffee & Cars events planned for the rest of Gauteng in the near future. For information on upcoming meet-ups, please keep an eye on the Instagram channels and @ignitiontv.

Business Day

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Videos shared on social media show members of the South African squad lining up to sign autographs and have pictures taken with a lone young Mexican boy who visited the team hotel.

🙌 Luchito, jeune mexicain, était le SEUL supporter à venir encourager l’Afrique du Sud dans leur hôtel de Pachuca.

🇿🇦❤️ Le sélectionneur Hugo Broos lui a offert un maillot et tous les joueurs l’ont signé avant de partir à l’entraînement ! pic.twitter.com/dzhmEZr4Yb

— Fútbol mexicano FR 🇲🇽 (@ligamx_fr) June 4, 2026

Coach Hugo Broos gave the young boy a jersey, which the players signed.

Other videos show the team’s second open training session, this time at the 26,000-seat Estadio Hidalgo, nicknamed “El Huracán” (The Hurricane), where a few hundred or perhaps even more than 1,000 local football supporters arrived to watch the session.

The stadium is the home ground of topflight Liga MX side Club de Fútbol Pachuca.

🇲🇽🇿🇦 La selección de Sudafrica hizo fila para sacarse fotos y firmarle la camiseta al único nene que fue a verlos al hotel.

GENIOS pic.twitter.com/TE8C27SytI

— 🥊𝕳 BARRAS DEL MUNDO ⚽🍺 (@Barras_LATAM) June 3, 2026

The South Africans are earning a reputation for approachability and friendliness in Mexico.

Bafana’s first training session on Wednesday was held on the fields of their training base at based at Universidad del Futbol y Ciencias del Deporte in Pachuca, after their arrival in Mexico City in the early hours of the morning local time.

3 de junio de 2026.
El entrenamiento de los @bafanabafana en el #Huracan de #Pachuca pic.twitter.com/tb83VgHR0r

— Charlie P (@CharliePM10) June 4, 2026

The South Africans meet co-hosts Mexico at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City in the opening game on June 11 (9pm SA time), a rematch of the first fixture when South Africa hosted the 2010 edition.

Bafana’s remaining two Group A games are against Czechia (Czech Republic) in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 18 (6pm SA time), and South Korea in Guadalupe, Mexico, on June 24 (3am on June 25 SA time).

🧵Grok Q&A: “🇿🇦 Bafana Bafana Open Training in Mexico — Fans Show Up Strong!”

I asked @grok for reaction to the viral video:

• Bafana Bafana hold open training session at Estadio Hidalgo in Pachuca
• Mexican fans pack the stands to watch the squad train ahead of World Cup…

— Zenzeni Sangweni (@Zenzeni_sangwen) June 4, 2026

Bafana’s departure from Johannesburg was delayed by a day from Sunday to Monday over the controversial non-arrival of their US visas by the weekend due to an alleged South African Football Association bungle.

Broos wanted to leave at least 10 days before the opening match because he said it takes that length of time to adjust to high altitude.

🏟️ | ¡Gran día se vivió en el Huracán!

Nuestra afición disfrutó del entrenamiento de la selección de Sudáfrica en el Estadio Hidalgo. Entreno, firmas, fotos y mucha alegría.

Gracias por visitarnos y compartir con nuestra gente @BafanaBafana 🇿🇦 @gobiernohidalgo pic.twitter.com/Ls2azaW66A

— Club de Futbol Pachuca (@Tuzos) June 4, 2026

Mexico City is at 2,240m above sea level, 500m above high-altitude Johannesburg (1,750m).

Bafana’s training base in Pachuca is at 2,430m.

Fifa’s first 48-team World Cup is being co-hosted by the US and Canada.

SUDÁFRICA YA ENTRENA EN EL HIDALGO 🇿🇦⚽️👋🏼
Los Bafana Bafana trabajan ya en el estadio de Pachuca de cara a la @fifaworldcup pic.twitter.com/6JnW69ZMNI

— LosCorresponsalesMX (@_Corresponsales) June 3, 2026

𝗦𝗨𝗗Á𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔 𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔 𝗗𝗘𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝗠𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔 𝗘𝗡 𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗛𝗨𝗖𝗔

Los Bafana Bafana calientan motores para encarar al combinado Tricolor el próximo 11 de junio en el juego inaugural del Mundial 2026. El césped del estadio Hidalgo recibió a la oncena… pic.twitter.com/pIWh1A6vDR

— amhidalgo (@amdigitalhgo) June 3, 2026

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