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Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson tells BizNews the infrastructure debate is no longer about money but procurement: of 2,800 big tenders published in a year, only one in six was awarded, and 90% of failures trace to weak feasibility work. His department now spends R600 million over three years preparing projects itself. A political commentator reviews the week: commission hearings, Ramaphosa's silence, and Julius Malema's leave to appeal his firearm conviction. AfriForum's Barry Bateman tells Chris Steyn police keep saying GBV suspects were "circulated" while cold cases go nowhere. Plus Wall Street edges up as October Fed hike odds collapse.

“If we're going to look for angels in this stuff, we're not going to find angels. It's the list of the devils, it's where do we choose, what is the thing to focus on, the least worst thing to focus on.” These are the words of political commentator Solly Moeng in his latest chat with Chris Steyn. Moeng slams Cyril Ramaphosa for “forgetting” that he is President. He also comments on the latest testimony before the Madlanga Commission where taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni showed clearly that he is “used to being feared’; Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) CIC Julius Malema’s being granted leave to appeal his firearms discharge conviction and sentence as well as his belated apology to a judge; the bail application of suspended Deputy National Police Commissioner General Shadrack Sibiya who was arrested for alleged sexual offences; and disgraced MP Fadiel Adams going to the High Court to challenge the withdrawal of charges against National Commissioner General Fannie Masemola. Moeng also gives his take on the latest deterioration in US-SA relations and says those who call for US Ambassador Brent Leo Bozell III to be kicked out are being “childish”.

In December 2011, Rael Levitt brought the hammer down on Quoin Rock, Dave King's Stellenbosch wine estate. Within months, Auction Alliance, the business he had spent 20 years building, was gone. In studio with Alec Hogg, Levitt went back over the auction that undid him: the vendor bidder he placed in the crowd, the lie he told billionaire bidder Wendy Appelbaum, and the attempted fix after the event that he admitted made it worse. He described years of investigations, a Consumer Commission ruling that was later overturned, and legal advice to stay silent that he now believes was wrong. Then came the comeback: an MBA in Los Angeles, a run-down warehouse in Epping, and one investor whose backing changed how the banks saw him. Alec put the question his book, It Takes a Tsunami, invites: is it a confession, or a defence? Levitt gave his answer, and told his 40-year-old self what he wished he had known.

The Private Prosecution Unit of AfriForum has taken up a number of cold cases in which the police have failed to trace or arrest or re-arrest known suspects. In this interview with Chris Steyn, the unit’s Barry Bateman, reveals details of some of those cases as well as the responses received from the Acting National Police Commissioner to questions from Advocate Gerrie Nel. In one of these cases, AfriForum points out that “for five years now, you've got a man who raped a woman, came back a week later and tried to murder her, and he's been on the run since then. This is somebody who I would say has the potential to continue doing that…” Responding to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s GBV 60-day case audit order, Bateman says with reference to the cases they have taken on: “We've put together the list. We've given it to the police, and their response on each one is, we've circulated and it's gone to the Tracing Team. It doesn't cut it. If that's the response that the SAPS or the authorities are gonna give to the President, well then we're not gonna change anything.”

Gayton McKenzie told Alec Hogg he had never been wrong with a prediction, then put the DA at 38% in Cape Town and named the councils he expected the PA to win outright. The real obstacle in Joburg, he said, was not the DA but Helen Zille, though he still left the door open to working with her. The morning after Ramaphosa's address on gender-based violence, Ian Cameron told Chris Steyn the president had lied, and described what he did not find on unannounced visits to Kempton Park and Tembisa police stations. Grain farmer David Lupafya walked through the sums that separate a fundable farm from an unfundable one, and why the Land Bank's phone call weeks before planting left him on the wrong side of that line. McKenzie then put a three-week clock on the government guarantee he said South Africa's Formula One return depended on, and named the circuit he wanted first. Reuters rounded off the show from Wall Street, where a softer-than-expected inflation reading cooled bets on an October Fed rate hike and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both closed out a second straight quarter of gains.