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UNDER PRESSURE: The pressures faced by the South African steel industry have been well documented throughout the year. The lack of domestic demand growth, coupled with rising electricity and logistics costs, continues to eat into margins. However, the industry is also at the centre of trade-war hostilities, where tariffs are the order of the day. In the process, surplus steel is seeking new markets and there are reports that imports into South Africa are surging. There are no good solutions, but government intervention is looking increasingly likely.
UNDER PRESSURE
24th October 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
WRECKING BALL
WRECKING BALL
17th October 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
DODGING & WEAVING: The final countdown to the G20 Leaders’ Summit in South Africa is truly under way. What should have been something of a crowning moment for the country – the first African nation to host the event – has instead been a hard slog. Besides having to navigate what are truly hazardous geopolitical roads, Joburg’s infrastructure backlogs and general decay have also raised questions about the wisdom of having selected it as host city.
DODGING & WEAVING
10th October 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
MIND BLOWING: The subconscious mind is that part of one’s awareness that influences thoughts, feelings, and actions without one being fully conscious of that influence. It’s not entirely clear whether it was that or some form of reverse psychology that prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is also ANC president, to extol the relative management virtues of DA-run municipalities in his dressing down last month of thousands of ANC councillors.
MIND BLOWING
3rd October 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
DRIP FED: The water crisis being experienced in many parts of South Africa, including in metropolitan areas of Gauteng, has replaced loadshedding as the biggest problem and source of anxiety for residents. But it’s not only the lack of water that is the problem, it’s also a communications crisis. Rand Water’s communication is simply abysmal, leaving councils to drip-feed residents with information. There are no early-warning systems in place and when the taps run dry, so does the flow of information.
DRIP FED
26th September 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
BOARD FALLOUT: Developments at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, or #Necsa, have been explosive of late. Disquiet, disagreements and even legal action over the way remuneration policies had been implemented by the CEO led to mass resignations that left the board inquorate. There is also a worrying allegation that the financial position may have been misrepresented.
BOARD FALLOUT
19th September 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
SHOCKING: When the latest round of electricity tariffs were announced earlier this year, Eskom immediately raised questions about whether the methodology had been applied correctly. Once the reasons were published, the utility approached the courts for a review, claiming errors by the regulator, or Nersa, which has been on the wrong side of several legal rulings, acknowledged error and subsequently reached a R54-billion settlement, for which consumers will now pay.
SHOCKING
12th September 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
ON TRACK: Significant progress has been made in opening the Transnet rail network to private train operating companies (TOCs). Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has announced that 11 TOCs that applied earlier in the year to operate routes on Transnet’s rail network have met the requirements to do so and will now enter into contract negotiations to enable them to begin operating multiple routes (see also page 32).
ON TRACK
5th September 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
PERILOUS RIDE
PERILOUS RIDE
29th August 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
SURGERY VS CONVENTION
SURGERY VS CONVENTION
22nd August 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
TRADING SPACES: South Africa’s objective of diversifying its export markets in light of a rise in protection, prompted primarily by US President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda, is a correct one. Implementing the strategy, however, will be far more challenging and could well pose new risks. In the scramble to find alternative markets, South Africa must not rush into deals it could regret in future.
TRADING SPACES
15th August 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
HAIR RAISING: The impact of the tariffs being imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration on most countries, including South Africa, will probably not be felt immediately. Over time, however, the costs to American consumers and export-oriented countries and companies could be high. Most costly, arguably, is the damage it has caused to the multilateral rules-based system, with trade now at the mercy of short-term dealmaking where tactics always trump strategy.
HAIR RAISING
8th August 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
REFORM WRANGLES: Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busisiwe Mavuso offered this scathing assessment of Transnet following a recent decision by S&P Global to downgrade its credit rating: “S&P is calling out what has become clear to many of us – Transnet is seemingly resisting change and moving too slowly.” Transnet, on the other hand, insists progress is being made. Expect these wrangles to continue in both power and logistics as Eskom and Transnet struggle to face up to competition.
REFORM WRANGLES
1st August 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
FRAYING LINE: Recent developments in the South African Police Service and the political ecosystem that surrounds it are not entirely surprising. Organised syndicates that seem to abound locally will always seek to protect themselves by cultivating relations with powerful police officers and politicians. These developments, together with what is clearly a serious integrity crisis in the criminal justice system, are nevertheless shocking and pose a genuine threat to democracy.
FRAYING LINE
25th July 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
DIALOGUE KNOT: Few truly have much hope that the National Dialogue will yield the solutions needed to put out the fires associated with the country’s paltry growth and deep-rooted social problems. It has also now become something of a political knot after the firing of the Democratic Alliance’s Andrew Whitfield for a travel indiscretion. Those who dislike the current composition of the Government of National Unity will, no doubt, help fan the flames.
DIALOGUE KNOT
18th July 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
WORRYING SIGNS: A recent Human Sciences Research Council survey showed that most adults are concerned that political parties are being influenced by donations from wealthy elites. This, despite low levels of support for laws such as the Political Funding Act. The apparent contradiction most likely stems from growing dissatisfaction with the political and democratic status quo, which the survey also confirmed.
WORRYING SIGNS
11th July 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
HOWZAT
HOWZAT
4th July 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
FACTS & STATS: While it is not certain whether the renowned American writer Mark Twain really said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”, the following quote is also often attributed to him: “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.” The pliability of South Africa’s own unemployment statistics is now under the spotlight after Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie questioned Statistics South Africa’s figures, despite these being based on a methodology that is far more orthodox than Fourie’s.
FACTS & STATS
27th June 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
FUTURE IMPERFECT: The immediate threat of the so-called ‘gas cliff’ may be mitigated through a proposed move by Sasol to divert some methane-rich gas, produced synthetically from coal, to industrial consumers until 2030. This will come at a higher cost than current imports from southern Mozambique, but should extend the supply plateau from 2028 to 2030. There is still little certainty what will happen thereafter, though.
FUTURE IMPERFECT
20th June 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
METRO MESS: For those living in South Africa’s largest cities, the latest report by the Auditor-General of South Africa was no surprise. Only the City of Cape Town received a clean audit, pointing to ongoing problems with financial management. And where finances fail, so do services, whether water or electricity, waste removal or traffic lights, or the proper maintenance of roads.
METRO MESS
13th June 2025 By: Darlene Creamer
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