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A former head of IDAC in a police cell. A suspended deputy police commissioner denied bail. A whistleblower general lined up to run the Hawks. And an ANC that has slipped to around a third of the vote. Few people have watched South Africa's criminal justice system unravel from as close up as Glynnis Breytenbach, the former senior prosecutor who is now the DA's chief whip in Parliament. In conversation with Alec Hogg, she said she was "sadly not surprised" by the latest arrests, called the Agrizzi plea deal a travesty, argued IDAC should never have existed and said the acting police minister should simply be appointed. She also set out how long a proper reset of police, prosecutors and courts would take, and who she would like to see behind bars a year from now. Despite all of it, she insisted the country can be fixed.

Across the Eastern Cape, boys and girls run onto rugby fields in their school shoes or a pair of tekkies. Lincoln Mali, founder of the Mzwandile Mali Schools Rugby Champions League, tells BizNews how a visit by businessman Paul Gardiner to Kwanobuhle township led to Boots for Boys and Girls, a campaign to give pre-loved rugby boots to players who don’t have the right kit. The first collection box was placed at St Andrew’s College in Makhanda, and Mali hopes the drive will spread to other schools beyond the Eastern Cape. His league, which grew out of a tournament he started to honour his father to bring rugby to township schools, now includes 133 schools and is growing to 150 next year. Mali says his main aim is not only to produce rugby players. He wants them to stay at school, get good grades and have families of their own, because rugby gave him “great friendships, a lot of structure, a lot of discipline.”– Linda van Tilburg

Former DA leader Tony Leon tells Alec Hogg the ANC is electorally on life support after this week's local elections, and that thousands of councillors now out of work could make the fight over its next leader very ugly. Solly Moeng says Herman Mashaba must drop the personal angle against Helen Zille and put Johannesburg first, while ActionSA surprises in Tshwane. In a Ricardo portfolio update, Alec asks whether Palantir, with revenue up 96% to more than $2 billion in a quarter, can be worth what the market asks. Plus the Nasdaq's worst day in 19 months.

One day after the Local Government Elections in South Africa, in this interview with Chris Steyn - just after four o'clock and with 43% of the results in - political commentator Solly Moeng says Action SA leader Herman Mashaba and his party leadership need to listen to calls from voters not to go into coalitions with the ANC, but to work with the DA. “They have to find a way to respond to the people of South Africa who are saying we are punishing the ANC…his intentions are good, but I think he needs to take away this personal anger that he has against specifically Zille…they cannot sacrifice the will of the people because of personal feelings…” Moeng also comments on the performance of MKP, the FF, the PA, the EFF and other parties. “At least the people now have spoken. They've said to the ANC, we've trusted you long enough. We're slowly, slowly, slowly pulling the rug from under your feet. And that's the way to do it, slowly, slowly…so that it's not like an overnight thing and then they start blaming, I don't know what else, Jan van Riebeek.” As for US President Donald Trump’s party’s Midterm defeat, Moeng cautions: “...it's not time to celebrate Trump losing. Okay, we can do it. We private people can do it. But I think the people who are running foreign policy must spend more time lobbying…we need to work with America…we need foreign policy that is run by people who are not running around with emotions and old-era, Soviet era ideas about international relations.”

Four companies BizNews owns reported in the same week, so Alec Hogg went back to his own valuations to see whether they still held. Palantir nearly doubled its revenue and its chief executive declared his intent to take "the entire market", yet one number nagged at Alec. Uber delivered a fifth straight quarter of 20%-plus bookings growth while Wall Street priced it as if its best days were behind it. Back home, Lesaka and Exemplar told a different story, and slowing growth forced a harder look at what the Ricardo portfolio was willing to pay. Some numbers went up, some came down, and the pattern said a lot about where growth was coming from.