BizNews Radio

A commission of inquiry can't jail anyone. It can't force government to do anything at all. So what is the Madlanga Commission actually for, and what happens if its final report just gets filed away like so many before it? Accountability Now's Paul Hoffman walks through 25 years of scrapped anti-corruption units, three trips to the Constitutional Court, and one narrow legal route that could still see South Africa's newest corruption-busting unit, IDAC, ruled unconstitutional if the commission gets it wrong.

Sakeliga CEO Piet le Roux takes the "state-proofing" argument he's built at home and points it at Washington. His case: South Africa isn't the country the 1994 constitution describes any more, and the US still treats it like it is. He walks through what's actually at stake for America, then lays out three ways it could respond, from writing South Africa off to a new, differentiated approach that rewards competent institutions and bypasses failing ones. Along the way, a hard look at what happened to Zimbabwe's Western population, and why he thinks the same could happen here if nothing changes.

Namibia struck oil and became the hottest investment story on the continent. Mozambique's tax take is about to jump sharply on the back of gas. Right next door, South Africa is sitting on a geological basin that industry figures compare to the discovery of gold in Johannesburg, and it has just taken another direct hit in the Constitutional Court. OPASA's Niall Kramer joins Alec Hogg to explain what is really being left in the ground, who is standing in the way, and why the window on this opportunity will not stay open forever.

In their latest BizNews chat, Chris Steyn and Political Commentator Solly Moeng cover the deepening mystery surrounding the apparent suicide in Paris of former Police Minister and ambassador Nathi Mthethwa; Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie’s “nepotistic” appointments of Minister of Arts and Culture; the relationship between Tenderpreneurs Cat Matlala and Hungwani Maumela, the nephew by marriage of President Cyril Ramaphosa; the factionalised African National Congress (ANC) naming over forty candidates for mayors in eight metros. “What are we to do with all these people who play such crucial, toxic, dangerous roles for South Africa…Let us ignore these politicians who think that we are not one and show them we are..We should come together and take back this country.” In some good news, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) has intercepted a R167-million Cocaine shipment at OR Tambo. “They should also trace the masterminds…Of course they will assassinate, they will kill people, they will offer bribes, they will probably blackmail people. But we should find these people. We should be known as a country that says no - and that does something about it. For now, we are a country where everything goes. Everything goes. And it has got to stop at some point.”

Illegal mining kingpins are in the crosshairs when a new Illegal Mining Bill becomes law with R100 million fines and 30-year prison sentences on the cards. However, Independent Governance Expert Richard Chelin tells Chris Steyn that in the six years it has taken the government to draft the bill, illegal mining has gone from “a regulatory headache to a national security crisis…but beyond the money, we're talking about sinkholes, we're talking about environmental degradation, water contamination. We've seen damaged infrastructure. We've seen what explosions have done recently in West Rand. And also we've seen the rise of violent crime in mining communities. Day in, day out, week in, week out we've seen on the news gangs, Zama Zama gangs, fighting each other and innocent individuals and people getting caught in the crossfire. But the one thing is the cost is enormous and we've been paying it while waiting for the bill to come through.”