President Cyril Ramaphosa fumbled again this week. Promises sputtered and commissions stalled, while SA’s institutional machinery lurched from one crisis to the next, hobbling over legal ambushes, climate red flags and boardroom shake-ups.
The Madlanga commission, tasked with probing criminal infiltration of the SA Police Service and the judiciary, was forced to delay its start scheduled for a next week after Mmamoloko Kubayi failed to procure essential infrastructure, from chairs to sound systems, imperilling the interim report deadline, as Sinesipho Schreiber reports.
We published a rare front-page editorial on the delay, lambasting Ramaphosa for streamlined promises and executive drift.
And when regulators err, someone else pays. SA households and factories are about to feel the sting after Nersa bungled its own calculations, passing the bill to consumers and industries already gasping under sky-high energy costs, as Lindiwe Tsobo reports.
In the courts, what began as an ambitious healthcare reform now reads like a courtroom thriller, as Tamar Kahn reports. The Board of Healthcare Funders stormed the Constitutional Court, Sakeliga argued fiscal doom in Pretoria and Business Day charged MPs with running a consultation charade. If the judges side with the challengers, National Health Insurance, noble as the concept may be, could be sent back to the drawing board.
Jana Marx pieced together a useful article in which the Reserve Bank warned that floods, droughts and supply chain jolts could knock its inflation targeting off course. Its 50-year stress tests demand “climate-informed” rates and environmental planning, a first for a central bank that until now treated weather as background noise.
One of the most read articles this week is from Kabelo Khumalo, who delivered BDO’s caution that slapping tax on foreign pensions would backfire. Wealthy retirees, the firm says, would pack their bags and take their income — and VAT, capital gains tax and estate duty — to friendly shores.
Another day, another scandal. Finance minister Enoch Godongwana suspended the GPAA CEO, Kedibone Madiehe, amid a R1bn procurement probe, as Marx reported. With more than R2-trillion in pension funds at stake, this headline feeds into the narrative that corruption is the way of life for public officials.
In the corporate trenches, Jacob Webster penned a heart-warming article, unable to resist the urge to celebrate what looks like a visionary act of corporate philanthropy in which Jannie Mouton put R72bn on the table to turn Curro into a public benefit organisation. Profits will be ploughed into bursaries, classrooms and teacher training — a radical view on ESG for education.
Elsewhere, Khumalo showcased Business Day’s journalism with a deep dive into how SA banking giants are rewriting their African playbooks regarding East Africa's growth arc, chasing 5%-6% GDP growth, a $750bn infrastructure pipeline and Gulf corridor trade ties.
Investors are buying into Simon Baloyi’s reset of Sasol, if the share price is anything to go by, which logged its biggest one-day rise in four years. Slashed write-offs, surging cash flow and a debt target of less than $3bn have tilted the risk-reward in the Hammanskraal-born executive’s favour, Tsobo reports.
In labour, Shoprite’s Express Trolley pilot, SA’s first smart shopping cart, has sparked fears of widespread cashier displacement and drawn union Saccawu’s ire over missing labour consultations, Nompilo Goba reports. Tom Eaton quips that while shoppers pilot space ships, real-world automation costs jobs. But for now, the rollout is limited to a few prototypes, not wholesale layoffs.
In the motor sector, Numsa secured above-inflation wage increases of as much as 6% over three years for 300,000 workers, plus negotiated access to primary healthcare for the first time, as Luyolo Mketane reports.
Murray & Roberts is gone after a century-old mission collided with state procurement chaos and global missteps. Ronnie Siphika, our guest op-ed writer this week, charts how megaprojects such as Kusile and Medupi bled cash, diversification sprawled and state ties drained balance sheets.
Until next week. Every story is your business.
In Memoriam: Tshidi Madia’s integrity inspired every pursuit of accountability. Rest in peace
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