This week's briefing room tracks fault lines in SA's institutional fabric, from campus corruption and M&A blow-ups to legal showdowns and rugby implosions.
First, campus corruption cancer as university corruption metastasises into an existential threat. Marthinus van Staden, our guest op-ed writer and Wits professor, lays out ghost-student fraud, misallocated NSFAS billions and nine of 26 universities under governance scrutiny or administration.
Tamar Kahn then adds salt to the wound, exposing how three Setas have turned Skillsland into a sinkhole, a governance failure that cuts deep into the jobless emergency that threatens to upend the social compact that holds our fragile democracy together.
Speaking of jobs, Hilary Joffe provided a sobering coda on Stats SA, whose unemployment data is under scrutiny following this news platform's revelation of comments from a former Capitec CEO that have entered the national conversation. Joffe warns that politicising Stats SA data threatens the credibility of every headline indicator from the agency that sits atop the policy chain, from SETAs allocations to steel tariff reviews.
On the factory floor, 'industries under siege' has become literal. Sugar mills won a temporary cartel-style lifeline, Goodyear's Kariega plant teeters on closure, steelmakers lobby for tariff protection, and pharma tenders skip local producers, as reported by Kabelo Khumalo, Luyolo Mketane, and Kahn. All as Shoprite comes under harsh activist investor scrutiny for internal minimum pay, arguing the survival wage entraps workers in poverty, Nompilo Goba reports.
And Chinese car manufacturers have opened a fresh front. Jameel Motors relaunched ChanAN with a Menlyn HQ and 25 franchises, as Denis Droppa reports, aiming to undercut legacy brands, i.e. those with actual factories in SA, on price.
A direct response to our Goodyear coverage from reader Assis Pontes challenges the assumption that government intervention could rescue the factory when, in Pontes' view, the state " can’t even run government properly, let alone a manufacturing plant".
"Car imports, steel imports, clothing imports ... we have the capacity to produce these things, but it seems there is no capacity to nurture these industries in SA," says Pontes.
Meanwhile, Tara Roos reports ministerial travel costs have ballooned tenfold since July 2023, shredding austerity pledges. Yes, the spending points to expanding engagements in a fractured global order, but readers would be right to ask what influence and trade deals have come out of these engagements.
In boardroom trenches, new Absa boss Kenny Fihla is overhauling Africa's ambitions, as Kabelo Khumalo and Jacqueline MacKenzie's reporting show, Richemont's Rupert heirs face a rate revolt over unequal voting in this article by our international news service supplier Reuters, and Jacob Webster's piece on Anglo's R70bn collapsed coal deal exposed that Duncan Wanblad pivot to copper may demand more than fancy PowerPoints.
Sinesipho Schrieber pitched with some world-class reporting in our courts. Regional courts have taken Ramaphosa to task over pay, and the Competition Commission to rewind rand-rigging prosecutions has Standard Bank hurling ignorance jabs.
On the pitch, George Byron captures a humbled Springbok camp, Rassie Erasmus admitting his side was "dog sh*t" in a 38-22 loss to Australia, while Sazi Hadebe take on Orlando Pirates coach Abdeslam Ouaddou shows why "if ain't broke, don't fix it" delivered a risk-adjusted 1-1 draw against Mamelodi Sundowns .
Until next week. Every story is your business.
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