Some would have been rattled. Others will say they’ve seen this movie before. Both would be fair responses to KwaZulu-Natal’s police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s revelations, alleging deep-seated rot at the highest levels of the SA Police Service and political sphere.
As the peerless Natasha Marrian reports, he accused the police minister himself, Senzo Mchunu, of corruption. We’re talking direct claims of interference, misuse of authority and obstruction of justice . The president’s silence is deafening, though he’s expected to say something — anything — on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Kabelo Khumalo, Standard Bank’s 2025 business journalist of the year, chewed on the edges of the saga surrounding the National Lotteries Commission, now caught in a storm of proximity, politics and property. Sbu Shabalala, once CEO of Adapt IT and now kin by marriage to Deputy President Paul Mashatile, finally broke his silence amid allegations that a Durban home he bought was part of a kickback arrangement. Shabalala calls the speculation defamatory and misogynistic, disguised as journalism, insisting personal relations were being twisted into presumed impropriety.
But as our editorial reminds us, renewal inside the ANC is less a plan than a performance. And not a very convincing one. As headlines swirled around criminal allegations, state tenders and disciplinary theatrics, the ANC’s own disciplinary committee quietly cleared party figures such as Malusi Gigaba, David Mahlobo and Cedric Frolick. Not because they were exonerated, but because the charges weren’t properly processed by party leadership. No hearings, no accountability; just paperwork fumbled into absolution.
And while that unfolds, Thando Maeko, who reports like she’s wired to the signal, not to the spectacle, peeled back the ANC’s annual report, revealing a loss of nearly 200,000 members — a quiet exodus where the middle class seems to be checking out, if not politically, then fiscally.
In the economic trenches, factory output hardly grew, as reported here by our economics correspondent, Jana Marx. And somewhere in the fog, Operation Vulindlela soldiers on. Some analysts think it’s working; the rest of us are watching the scoreboard nervously.
The Trump tariffs hit this week, with a 30% wall set to be raised against SA exports. Citrus, vehicle parts, wine — all sweating under the policy that analysts say is less about trade and more about Trump’s domestic political choreography.
Still, the SA response has been as scrambled as it is thin. As Peter Bruce puts it, “Ramaphosa’s ability to ‘do deals’ is being cruelly exposed as the humbug of a negligent commander”. SA has no diplomatic presence in Washington, no back channel to soften the blow, and no real plan beyond telling exporters to diversify — a strategy Bruce likens to “trying to douse a house fire with a bottle of beer”.
And then we had justice, algorithms and the future of care all served up in the final report of an inquiry, which accused top medical schemes of racially biased fraud investigations. The numbers are sobering: black anaesthetists were more than six times more likely to be flagged by Medscheme, for example. Industry players say the data is flawed; that surnames are a weak proxy for race. That demographic experience explains the gaps. Fair enough. No analysis is perfect. But between these two poles sits a deeper question. Not who is right, but what kind of systems allow such distrust to calcify in the first place? The goal, surely, should not be to win the argument but to interrogate the system, as our editorial suggests.
On the corporate front, Vodacom and Remgro scored a breakthrough while tenders unravel and oversight wilts elsewhere. Mudiwa Gavaza, who has been watching the deal closely for more than four years, delivered the kind of reporting that reminds us what institutional stamina looks like. If the week’s other stories were filled with evasion and collapsed accountability, this one stands out: negotiated, revised and now headed to the Competition Appeal Court unopposed.
The week wrapped up with a far-reaching push in global finance, as reported by Khumalo. The B20 SA finance and infrastructure task force, chaired by Sim Tshabalala, is calling on the G20 to rethink Basel III capital requirements, specifically, how they penalise long-term infrastructure lending. Basel III rules, designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 crash, have inadvertently starved infrastructure of capital by assigning “excessively high risk weights”. Tshabalala’s pitch: treat infrastructure as its own specialised asset class. As the piece notes, “Basel has been implemented in SA on the gold standard...” but now that tradition may be costing us more than it’s protecting us. It’s a quiet provocation, tucked in our Friday top story, that suggests that prudence without agility is just paralysis with good intentions.
And finally, we take a moment to honour someone who believed in editorial clarity, reader respect and the unapologetic demand for accountability, as David Williams, Financial Mail deputy editor, writes. Stephen Mulholland was a newsroom force: part disciplinarian, part provocateur and never one to confuse sentiment with standards. He commissioned a psychiatrist to dissect PW Botha’s “Rubicon” speech, published it without blinking and defended it before the deadline the way he insisted everyone must: “If you can’t defend it on Tuesday night, you can’t defend it on Wednesday morning”. Mulholland’s legacy lives in every line that asks for fairness without flattery. He is survived by a profession that, still, despite its bruises, believes readers deserve more than spin.
And so we close this first edition of Business Day’s Briefing Room, not with a noise, but with a signal. Until next week. Every story is your business.
Tiisetso Motsoeneng
Acting editor
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