BizNews Radio

The taxman, the Reserve Bank and your crypto wallet: Dawie Roodt doesn't hold back. In this Q&A straight after his BNC#9 keynote, the Efficient Group chief economist explains why officials want your phone and your passwords if you try to take money offshore, why roughly 200 000 taxpayers are propping up the entire country, and why he thinks the new Transformation Fund could spell the end of BEE as we know it. Along the way: a blunt take on land versus cattle, why South African schools spend big and still underperform, and why he'd rather fix the tax code than lower the tax burden.

A brigadier's pips on a secretary with zero police experience. A rape kit that costs the state eight times what it should. A cocaine pipeline running through a West Coast holiday town. One year after he was shot at during an oversight visit in Philippi, Police Portfolio Committee chairperson Ian Cameron sits down at BNC#9 to talk about what he's actually found inside South Africa's police service, and it isn't just bad apples. He names the patronage machine, explains why whistleblowers can't afford to go public, and says exactly how long he thinks it will take to turn the SAPS around. Then the floor opens, and the questions get sharper.

Prince Mashele has a warning for KwaZulu-Natal: when Jacob Zuma dies, he believes MK's hold on the province won't survive him. On this Daybreak, the political analyst spells out the party he's quietly building to replace the ANC, who he says is bankrolling it, and why he'd rather copy Singapore than "African democracy." Then Rob Hersov makes the case that Johannesburg is being run like 1920s Chicago, except the mafia here has captured the police, the courts and the boardroom too, and nobody agrees on who the city's Al Capone actually is. Johnny Copelyn, in one of his last interviews as HCI's boss, explains why South Africa is still sitting on oil and gas its neighbours are racing to exploit. Riël Malan explains why 36 failed startups taught him more than any MBA could. And Wall Street closes out August in the red as a hawkish Fed chair and a spiking oil price rattle markets, with one Californian utility down 20% in a single session.

Prince Mashele has a warning for KwaZulu-Natal: when Jacob Zuma dies, MK goes with him. In this Q&A from BNC#9, the political analyst behind a new project to unseat the ANC gets blunt about the money he can't yet raise, the small group he says quietly bankrolls South African politics, and why he'd rather copy Singapore than "African democracy." He also names names on who he's backing in Johannesburg's mayoral race, and why some of his own likely allies won't thank him for it.

Rob Hersov isn't sure Helen Zille can fix Johannesburg. Not because she isn't capable, but because of who she'd be fighting: an "international mafia" he says has spent 20 years perfecting the art of looting the country's richest city and knows exactly how to disappear when the pressure's on. In this unfiltered BNC#9 Q&A, Hersov compares Joburg to 1920s Chicago, weighs up whether South Africa needs an El Salvador-style crackdown, and explains why he's told his own kids to build their careers overseas rather than at home. Then the mood shifts: he makes the case that AI is about to hand young South Africans, with nothing but a smartphone and an idea, the kind of opportunity no generation has ever had. Contradictions and all, it's Hersov at his most candid.