BizNews Radio

Springbok ticket prices have soared, suites have been taken over under “clean stadium” rules, and loyal supporters are being squeezed out. BizNews Rugby's boots-on-the-ground reporter, Rory Steyn, speaks to representatives from legendary Joburg rugby clubs and bitter rivals Pirates and Wanderers, as well as chartered accountant and former Sun International CEO, David Coutts-Trotter, about the financial damage being done to community clubs and the growing anger among fans. With families facing an ever-rising cost for a day at the rugby and clubs losing vital income, they warn that SARU’s pursuit of revenue could weaken the very grassroots structures and suppor...

A former Air Force brigadier is behind bars in the United States, Jasmine Opperman warns the real failure lies in how the State Security Agency handled her. Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube hits back at claims her department is a mess as the DA looks to 2029, while traders pile into Micron and a record SK Hynix listing even as everyone frets the AI trade is overdone. Plus, we look at Iran choking the Strait of Hormuz, Meta charging for its AI, and Ben Bernanke joining Anthropic.

Siviwe Gwarube says South Africa's education system needs long-term reform, not quick political wins. The Basic Education Minister discusses her first two years in office, tackling textbook procurement concerns, eliminating unsafe pit toilets identified in 2018, strengthening early childhood development, and navigating provincial delivery challenges. She argues the real measure of success lies in improving literacy and numeracy from the foundation phase, while defending the DA's record in government and outlining why investing in young learners will shape South Africa's future.

A former brigadier general in the South African Air Force (SAAF) has been jailed in the United States after she pleaded guilty to one count of acting as an agent of South Africa and one of making a false statement in her security clearance application. In this interview with Chris Steyn, Jasmine Opperman, who spent over 20 years in South Africa’s intelligence services, and who is now a senior analyst at Fulcrum Analytics, takes viewers through the case of Portia Anyamba - who held the position of programme management operational specialist in the National Security Programme Office at the Oak Ri...

DA insider and Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube responds to claims that DA ministers haven't delivered, days after John Steenhuisen's bombshell interview shook the party. She explains why the DA's current turmoil could actually be its best opportunity yet, and why she says 2029 is now the party's election to win or lose. Also today: Pretoria's risky new carbon regulations, a Russian oligarch turning on Putin, and why Nvidia's trillion dollar selloff might be a buying signal.

Today's BizNews Daybreak covers escalating US-Iran strikes spiking crude oil and Fed minutes warning of upside inflation risks. Trump permits Ukrainian Patriot missile manufacturing and lifts Syria sanctions, while Apple expands a $30B Broadcom deal and China greenlights Nvidia sales. Locally, Frans Cronje analyses the DA's John Steenhuisen fallout and Willem Els goes through a botched police response to a Ballito mall bomb scare.

Chilling details have emerged of a recent failed bomb attack in the packed Food Court of the Ballito Junction Regional Mall. The device was placed by a 15-year-old radicalised teen intent on committing mass killing, but it failed to explode. The FBI alerted The Hawks, but the bomb had already been placed. The teen was finally arrested last week. In this interview with Chris Steyn, Willem Els, the Senior Training Coordinator on Terrorism and Explosives Related Incidents at the Transnational Threat and International Crimes Programme of the Institute for Security Studies, says: “For a long time, we've been warning about yo...

Dr Frans Cronje joins Alec Hogg for a wide-ranging catch-up that reframes the week's political noise into something more useful: a structural theory of why the DA is stuck and what it actually has to do next. His regime change argument is sharp — South Africans have lost confidence in the ANC, but they haven't yet gained confidence in the DA as a replacement. Until they do, the country sits in no-man's land. His defense of Tony Leon is equally direct: what Steenhuisen has alleged is lobbying, not state capture, and conflating the two is both factually wrong and damaging to th...

Frans Cronje delivers a hard-hitting assessment of the Democratic Alliance's internal turmoil, John Steenhuisen's dramatic fall from grace, and what it means for South Africa's political future. He argues the DA's biggest challenge is proving it can govern better than the ANC, warns that voter confidence is slipping, and explains why Helen Zille's Johannesburg ambitions could reshape the country. Cronje also defends Tony Leon, dismisses state capture claims, and outlines why he remains cautiously optimistic about South Africa's future.

In today’s episode, we cover the surge in oil prices following US airstrikes on Iran. We also review $50 billion in new defense deals from the NATO summit in Turkey. Locally, experts unpack the DA’s internal credibility crisis and controversial cabinet appointments, alongside the reality of South Africa's R40 billion automotive subsidy program amid Chery’s plant takeover. Finally, we look at Nigel Farage forcing a by-election by resigning as the Clacton MP.

William Sanderson-Meyer has been watching South African politicians for more than three decades. His verdict on John Steenhuisen's News24 interview is unsparing: it was a ransom note. Not a whistleblower's disclosure, not a principled stand — a threat, published in the open, by a man who cannot accept his own demotion and needs the DA to find him a way out. WSM traces the damage: a personal financial hit of half a million rand a year, severed relationships, a tainted brand, and a party now forced to choose between quietly paying him off or risking a public war three months before a...

In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Solly Moeng, blasts President Cyril Ramaphosa for his appointments of Ayanda Dlodlo as Ambassador to France and Dina Pule to Cabinet. “...the ANC still looks in its own dustbin of people they've thrown in the past to say, OK, maybe this one, people have forgotten who they are. Let's use them again.” He further slams the President’s failure to act against suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu. “It's the same thing as Jacob Zuma not being charged for State Capture… This whole Madlanga Commission was started because this man decided to, from what we've hear...

Iran strikes commercial tankers near the Strait of Hormuz as Tehran enforces its shipping lanes, while Samsung's shares slide despite a 19-fold profit jump and NATO allies brace for Trump's push on defense spending.

Herman Mashaba hits back at claims he left Johannesburg's finances in ruins, and columnist William Saunderson-Meyer weighs the damage John Steenhuisen's allegations against Tony Leon have done to the DA's brand.

Forensic investigator Paul O'Sullivan exposes a recovery scam preying on fraud victims, and Bloomberg unpacks the $2 trillion global race to dominate future battlefields with drones, hypersonic weapons, and AI.

Chery just took over Nissan's old Eastern Cape plant, plugging straight into a subsidy scheme that costs South Africans over R40 billion a year, split between just seven manufacturers. Trade expert Donald MacKay tells Alec Hogg why this isn't a normal acquisition, and how the deal appears to sidestep a contribution other big players like Vodacom and Coca-Cola had to make. With a parliamentary review looming in September, is this subsidy model built to last?

ActionSA president Herman Mashaba reveals what Johannesburg's current mayor told him in a private phone call about why the city can't pay its bills. He also breaks down the Cape Town mayoral race, the anti-immigrant protests spreading across South Africa, and why he won't speak to Helen Zille directly. With the November local government elections looming, his answer to one question raises new doubts about who's really steering Johannesburg into the ground.

Kyiv faces fresh Russian missile strikes ahead of the NATO summit in Turkey, while tensions linger following the death of Iran's Supreme Leader. Meanwhile, OPEC+ quotas drop oil prices, Alibaba blocks a US blacklist order, and investors fret over an AI chip stock pullback. Locally, Jacob Zuma's Gupta meeting and Cyril Ramaphosa's controversial appointment of Dina Pule ignite political accountability debates.

In the latest NdB Sunday Show Chris Steyn talks to Lauren Evanthia, the founder of the Organic Humanity Movement (OHM), about former President Jacob Zuma’s reunion with one of the Guptas in India in the presence of a South African diplomat, while South Africa is struggling to find the Guptas and extradite them for State Capture; President Cyril Ramaphosa’s appointment of Dina Pule as a Cabinet Minister a decade after she was removed from Parliament; and the revelations of the secret messages on the phone of Crime Intelligence (CI) boss General Feroz Khan who fought so hard to prev...

New By-Election data shows the DA outpolling the ANC nationally for the first time. Meanwhile Bloomberg's Mike McGlone explains why crude could fall well below $57 a barrel despite Gulf tensions, KwaZulu-Natal farmer Pete Keen details the mounting cost of the foot and mouth disease crisis, and OpenAI's proposed 5% government stake raises questions about who profits from the AI boom.

Six months ago, KwaZulu-Natal farmer Pete Keene came to BizNews with a warning nobody wanted to hear. His herd was a hundred percent infected with foot and mouth disease, the government's response had a zero percent chance of working, and the law wouldn't even let him reach for a needle and syringe. Today, a lot has changed on paper — the High Court struck down that law, the minister who defended it has been removed — but Pete's message is stark: the fire is still burning, and the real cost, a calving rate that crashed from ninety to thirty percent, won't fully show...

Ramaphosa has handed the R300 billion social grants portfolio to Dina Pule - the minister Parliament once fined for persistently lying about a contractor relationship. Forensic investigator Paul O'Sullivan meanwhile spent six hours before the commission this week - speaking to Alec Hogg yesterday, he lays out uncomfortable history on General Mkhwanazi that cuts against the whistleblower narrative. Apple is negotiating chips from Chinese firms blacklisted for military ties to Beijing, while SARB governor Kganyago warns inflation expectations are creeping above target heading into July's rate decision.

In this interview with Chris Steyn, Willem Els of the Institute for Security Studies (SS) and Richard Chelin, an independent governance specialist, describe how organised crime syndicates have transitioned from making fake Covid-19 vaccines to flood the South African market with fake pharmaceuticals, particularly lifestyle drugs, like those for weight loss. They also comment on breaking news that a Magistrate has rejected the plea deal of tenderpreneur Cat Matlala. Chellin raised the question whether the plea deal in this highly politicised case could have been rushed, and Els says: “...if you look at the charges that he is facing and yo...

Forensic investigator Paul O'Sullivan spent over six hours giving sworn testimony to the Madlanga Commission on Monday — and his argument cuts straight through the mythology around General Ntlantlam Mkwanazi. O'Sullivan says the man hailed as a rare whistleblowing cop has in fact been part of the problem since 2012, when he unlawfully unsuspended Richard Mdluli on what O'Sullivan says were Jacob Zuma's instructions — then covered it up for eight years. A whistleblower, he told the commission, needs clean hands. He also argues Mkwanazi's balaclava-clad press conference of July 2025 was timed to deflect from the arrest of seven senior crime intelligence officers two...

South Africa's anti-immigrant national shutdown deadline arrived with violence in Johannesburg and the world watching. The S&P closed its best quarter in six years, Anthropic's export controls were quietly lifted overnight, and Tony Leon is not just firing back at John Steenhuisen - he's now weighing legal action.

Freedom Front Plus leader Corné Mulder gives BizNews the clearest outside read yet on the Democratic Alliance's implosion — tracing the Steenhuisen saga back to Trump's first executive order, the Oval Office "dim the lights" meeting, and a coalition built without a negotiated platform. Mulder explains why he feels sorry for his old rival, draws a hard line between DA and FF Plus values ahead of the local government elections, and warns of "bad actors on the periphery" who want South Africa's economy to fail. Plus: ABSA shares drop 8% despite calm guidance, and Tony Leon hits back at Steenhuisen's claims that his...

South Africa is not only dealing with a National Shutdown this week, but also with a couple of political hand grenades. In his latest chat to Chris Steyn, political commentator Solly Moeng his gives take on the alleged assassination attempt on Crime Intelligence (CI) boss General Feroz Khan just days before he was due at the Madlanga Commission, which heard testimony today that allies of the General had offered MKP MP Vusi Shongwe a R10-million bribe to back off pursuing testimony from him; as well as bombshell allegations from embittered former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen. “...Who owns th...

Author Rian Malan fires off a pointed open letter to Helen Zille on the anti-migrant marches sweeping South Africa, while a former DA leader breaks ranks on his own party just months before the 2026 municipal elections.

Also today: oil jumps as Iran moves on the Strait of Hormuz, Tesla rallies on a Full Self-Driving rollout, and a whistleblower pushes for criminal accountability over corporate silencing.

Rian Malan is the author of My Traitor's Heart — a bestseller translated into 11 languages, still in print decades after publication, and a book that drew praise from V.S. Naipaul, John le Carré and the New York Times as one of the most important works ever written about South Africa. In short, he is the real thing, one of the finest non-fiction writers our country has produced. And for me, easily the greatest living SA writer. Commissioning Malan at rates that reflect his stature is beyond what BizNews can fund from its operating budget. The economics of modern media — collapsing CPMs...

Today's BizNews Edge covers three stories that cut to the heart of South African business and politics. John Steenhuisen has broken publicly with the DA, naming Geordin Hill-Lewis and Tony Leon in allegations that threaten serious damage to the party just months before the 2026 municipals. Prosus, once a byword for discount and drift, has delivered full-year results that show a genuine turnaround — every regional ecosystem now profitable, Takealot breaking even for the first time, and a buyback programme outpacing Meta and Apple. And then the story Alec Hogg has been building toward for months: Malcolm King, the invisible man behind th...

South Africa's first high-profile whistleblower Wendy Addison is done talking shop. She's raised a criminal docket against a corporation and its directors for silencing two financial industry whistleblowers — and she thinks it could be a watershed moment. Can personal criminal accountability finally give whistleblower protection real teeth?

Vessels are still threading the Strait of Hormuz, but a Bloomberg analyst calls it Schrodinger's Strait: you never know if it's open until you try to get through. With traffic down to a fraction of normal and ships taking hits, owners are weighing whether the world's most vital oil route is worth the risk. We also unpacks Cape Town losing its clean audit, a record Korean tech bet, and Venezuela's climbing earthquake toll.

In the latest edition of the NdB Sunday Show with Chris Steyn, Lauren Evanthia, the Founder of the Organic Humanity Movement (OHM), talks about fears that the National Shutdown this week could spark unrest with African National Congress (ANC) SG Fikile Mbalula accusing former President Jacob Zuma of fuelling anti-immigrant violence: “..when we reach a point when…systems start to crumble because of government failure and the lack of ethical leadership, what happens is that society starts to take over. And it takes over in a very chaotic way because we don't have a replacement for government failure on such a la...

The Zynga founder and OpenAI investor can't understand why analysts cap consumer AI at $500 billion in what he sees as a $6 trillion market - he thinks that gap is exactly where the real opportunity lies. Oil spiked as Iran struck a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz mid-negotiation, OpenAI stalled its IPO, and African Bank posted a near-billion-rand loss. Back home, who is behind the assassinations of candidates and councilors during South Africa's voter registration weekend, and what does it mean for the elections ahead?

African Bank swung to a loss of nearly a billion rand after a four-year spree of buying and bolting together three banks to build a full-service lender, and the bad debt charge is still climbing. The contrast is brutal: a focused platinum-and-chrome miner, Tharisa, is printing cash with profit up more than sixfold, and the very morning African Bank’s loss landed, Tharisa was locking in fresh funding for its next mine. Anglo American, meanwhile, is reshaping itself around copper, selling out of coal and much of its South African portfolio while holding on to iron ore, and what that si...

In the latest edition of The Electoral Road Show, Chris Steyn and elections analyst Wayne Sussman talk about Ekurhuleni finally managing to pass a R71-billion budget thanks to the Democratic Alliance (DA) supporting the African National Congress (ANC). Sussman warns: “...we know the Freedom Front did far better in Ekurhuleni than the City of Johannesburg in 2021. And they could also say, look, the DA and the ANC are the exact same, there's no difference, vote for us. We will stand up to the ANC. So on the one hand, the DA is saying they're acting in the residents' interest, th...

South Africa made World Cup history as Bafana Bafana beat South Korea to reach the knockout stages for the first time ever. Oil slides for a fourth straight session on Iran deal oversupply, and Micron surges 11% on AI chip demand. The bigger question hanging over the morning: what has President Ramaphosa still not told South Africa about the Phala Phala money - and can the truth stay hidden?

Bafana Bafana are one result away from making World Cup history — but the path to the Round of 32 is complicated. With one point from two games and South Korea standing in their way on Thursday morning (3 AM SA time), Hugo Broos' men still have multiple routes through. The question is: how likely is each one?

In this video, we break down every scenario that could see South Africa advance — from the clean path (win and you're through) to the long shots that would have the whole country refreshing standings tables in the early hours. We look at what the...

Nedbank confirmed its guidance this morning, and its East Africa deal is weeks from closing - a transformation most investors are still underpricing. Grindrod's Port of Maputo posted extraordinary volumes, but the share may already be priced for perfection. A small coal miner no one follows just disclosed an 1,800% earnings swing, and the full story has not landed yet.

Three politicians - an ANC councilor and two aspirants from rival parties - were gunned down in a single evening as South Africa's 2026 election year turns violent, and a commentator warns the worst may still be ahead. Steenkamp Kraal's rare earth processing milestone gives the West its clearest shot yet at breaking China's grip on critical minerals, while semiconductor stocks shed more than 10% overnight on fears AI data center demand is cooling. Plus the US Senate breaks with Trump on Iran in a 50-48 vote.

Election year 2026 is turning deadly and dirty. In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, political commentator Solly Moeng slams the Speaker of Parliament for not opposing President Cyril Ramaphosa's urgent bid to stave off his impeachment inquiry. “I for one should not be surprised if the Speaker would have been called into some meeting somewhere with the political party leadership that deployed her…to say: listen, this is the way we want this thing to go.” He also laments the spate of political killings that has seen an African National Congress (ANC) councillor and two aspirant councillors, one from the Democr...

We explore a toughening economic climate as South African consumer confidence drops and central bank indicators flash red. Discover why the market is blindly punishing value, dragging down Sibanye Stillwater’s debt-free gold business despite solid restructuring plans. We also highlight Attacq’s resilient property portfolio and Steenkamp Kraal’s historic rare earth processing breakthrough. Finally, we head global to unpack Andy Burnham’s sudden political rise in the UK and SpaceX’s dramatic post-IPO market slide.