Friends,
It has been three short months since we launched BusinessLIVE Premium and it has been a fantastic success thanks to the thousands who have signed up. For a subscription fee of R4 a day (which amounts to R120 a month) you get access to all our great columns, analysis and opinion, as well as the big front-page news stories from Business Day and the Financial Mail cover story. And, as they say in the marketing jingles, “That’s not all!” You also have access to the top writers from the Financial Times and a selection of that great newspaper’s reporting, as well as articles from other titles such as Rand Daily Mail and Investor's Monthly.
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To give you an idea of what’s on offer to Premium subscribers, I’ve briefly summarised a selection of today’s top articles for you:
First up is Sikonathi Mantshantsha’s take on the Eskom scandal under the headline, Who is lying? Ngubane and Molefe or Ramatlhodi?
Sikonathi, never one to pull his punches, writes:
Thieves and fraudsters never reached old age, irrespective of their material wealth. The Creator gifted long lives to the chosen few so they could guide the nation through the complications of life. The Creator gave those chosen senior citizens of the tribe great faculty of mind so they could remember the most complicated details of events long past to help current generations deal with similar complications.
He then evaluates the performance of the leaders who have been drawn into the Eskom controversy. A must-read.
Sikonathi has also written the Financial Mail cover story, What Brian Molefe’s return to Eskom means for SA, which is essential in-depth reading. At a time when the news is getting shorter and faster, the Financial Mail cover article stands out for its research, depth and thoughtfulness. It is exclusive to subscribers.
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Next up is Gareth van Onselen’s take on the much-debated subject of “radical economic transformation” in the article, How the ANC invented radical economic transformation out of nothing.
Gareth writes regularly for the Business Day site and these articles can all be read with a Premium subscription. This article appears in the Financial Mail. In it, he makes the point:
A search through ANC archives suggests radical economic transformation is nothing more than a description, an ad hoc phrase invented as shorthand for conventional party thought. But it has become government policy and, through obscurity and fear, it has taken on a life of its own. Actual radical economic transformation, as a coherent concept, does not exist — and it never has.
What makes this compulsive reading is Gareth’s journey through those ANC archives as he traces the uncertain geneology of a concept that has become the subject of so much public discourse.
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Also on BusinessLIVE today is columnist Jonathan Jansen, who writes for The Times newspaper. His article, under the headline, I was celebrating the Blitzboks when I felt the whiplash of disgust, takes us into that uneasy place where nation building is threatened by the awful and ill-considered actions of a few. This from the column:
As the TV cameras scanned the excited spectators in the stands one of them settled on a well-set white man wearing a Springbok rugby jersey. Perhaps a foreign cameraman had no idea what horror he was showing to the world. The man held up a banner that read “Zuma se p***” . Maybe I saw wrongly, I thought for a moment. Yet later in one of the South African matches the camera showed the man and his friends with the same disgusting banner attaching the president's name to a woman's genitalia.
My heart sank.
Jansen goes back to the victorious coach’s words - “We did this for the country” - to salvage some hope. But you are left feeling empty at the fragility of that hope.
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Another unmissable read comes from Rob Rose, the Financial Mail editor, who has written under the heading, Don’t believe the hype in the rand rigging case. Rob is one of those writers who does not drift on the tide of public opinion and this article is no exception.
He argues that it is not wise to write off the case against rogue bank traders as part of some Gupta plot, as is becoming commonplace.
It’s lazy thinking. Unfortunately, just because the case has been hijacked by the slavering attack dogs of the anti-WMC mob doesn’t mean the rogue traders are innocent. Nor does it mean the case is a lickspittle patchwork of Zuma-inspired political conspiracy.
The truth is, there is plenty of evidence. And, of the 18 banks cited, Citigroup has already struck a “plea deal” with the commission in exchange for a R69m fine.
Hard, fair and edgy, this is an example of great business writing.
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Peter Bruce, editor-at-large, rounds up my selection of top writers available to Premium subscribers today.
In the article - Molefe kept on a diamond-studded leash - Peter writes:
The thought of Brian Molefe going back to his job as CE at Eskom after failing to become finance minister is so awful I feel sick every time I think about it.
He didn’t resign in 2016, even though Eskom and Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown said he had. He retired. Wednesday morning’s Business Day carried a story quoting the head of the Eskom pension fund as saying he had been retrenched.
Whatever. They are all lies peddled by liars. Imagine what might have happened to his R30m “pension” payout had he indeed become finance minister, as the Gupta family and President Jacob Zuma originally intended. Would he still have taken "early retirement” under the generous Eskom pension fund rules and taken the money?
Peter goes on to wonder what will happen at the ANC’s elective conference. The possibilities are scary.
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I hope you will take up our offer to subscribe and join the thousands who have signed up to read South Africa’s top writers. You are one click away from a world of high-quality news, opinion and analysis. Can you afford to be without it?
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