BizNews Radio

To sell internet access in South Africa, you first have to show ICASA the race of your shareholders. Sakeliga has now taken the regulator to the Pretoria High Court, but, oddly, not to scrap the 30% black-ownership rule. Chief executive Piet le Roux told Alec Hogg why he chose the narrower fight, why he is no fan of the "equity equivalent" escape route he is asking the court to open, and why he believes local ISPs and radio stations are next in line once Starlink's case is settled. He also answered the question critics keep asking about Elon Musk, explained why voters who tell pollsters they dislike BEE keep backing parties that defend it, and weighed whether a regulator defying its own minister could be the last straw for the GNU.

Rachel Kolisi has spent the past few months on the road in South Africa with Falling Forward, her book and the documentary that followed. Fourteen events and more than 10,000 people later, she is taking the project to London, a move prompted by women who travelled from Europe to attend the South African shows. In an interview with BizNews, she speaks carving out her own identity when brands wanted her at the table as a "two-for-one special," why vulnerability is still judged differently in women and why she will keep preaching financial independence for women until the end of her days. She also names the international women she most admires, with Melinda French Gates at the top of the list. – Linda van Tilburg

Political commentator Solly Moeng tells Chris Steyn that voters who shut the ANC out expect ActionSA and the DA not to cushion it over personal grudges: the ANC belongs on the opposition benches. Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie calls Swimming South Africa one of the country's worst federations, says the Act gives him no power to disband it, and calls Tatjana Smith's switch to the Netherlands a big loss with a big lesson. Plus Dean Macpherson on MK's KZN slide, Haniff Hoosen's 50/50 Durban, Charles Savage on AI writing all Purple Group's code, and Wall Street after Jensen Huang quits.

A year ago, Charles Savage made Alec Hogg a list of promises. This week he came back with Purple Group's best numbers yet: profit before tax up 36%, more than R100 billion in client assets, and nearly R17 billion deposited in a year when markets gave investors far less. So why do some shareholders still want out? Savage made the case that the scale benefits are only starting to show, that his longest-serving clients have grown their wealth faster than Warren Buffett, and that every line of the group's code is now written by AI, without a single job lost. He was also candid about what hasn't worked: a Philippine regulator who still holds the gate, a Kenyan launch that slipped, and crypto dragging on profits. He explained why his own bonus fell in a record year, and gave the advice he'd offer a 16-year-old opening her first account.

Gayton McKenzie spoke to Alec Hogg on the morning the ANC's national executive committee sat to decide its coalition path, and he was ready with a prediction: who would run Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, and which party he believed would be left with nothing. Hours later he was due to sit down alone with DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis, a meeting he traced back to a favour owed to Rob Hersov and a handshake made before a single vote was cast. The Patriotic Alliance more than doubled its council seats yet lost the Eldorado Park ward where it was born, and McKenzie was candid about why he felt it took silver rather than gold. He named the complacency he blamed for George, the one Northern Cape council he said the PA would rather fight a re-election over than hand to the ANC, and the message he sent his own leaders that morning. He closed by taking aim at Swimming South Africa after Tatjana Smith's switch to the Netherlands.