Podcasts from the Edge
Episodes
Will the ANC go quietly in 2024?
25 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Veteran South African editor and commentator Tim du Plessis tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that he worries that ANC may n...
Flights of Fancy
18 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Competition Commission is investigating three (yes, three, that’s all it takes) complaints that South Africa’s domestic airlines are overcharg...
Lines in the sand
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Change is coming to South African politics, former DA federal chairman and now Eastern Cape Provincial Chairman for ActionSA, Athol Trollip, tells Pet...
Gqeberha 2022 is not Cape Town 2018
27 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"We need political stability to get to economic stability," Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssteen tells Peter Bruce a...
Not a moment too soon
20 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
People have been celebrating with some relief the publication of Songezo Zibi’s new book, Manifesto. It’s been a long time coming and with charact...
In six weeks Cyril can save South Africa
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Whatever your politics, there’s no doubt that Eskom’s unreliable power supply, the worsening condition of its kit and the prospect of a complete E...
Let's try not to pass gas
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As business and the State lean towards gas as an intermediate fuel between our current dependence on coal and our future commitment to renewable energ...
Too complicated to contemplate?
23 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Bruce asks South Africa’s busiest and arguably most influential agriculture and land advisor, Wandile Sihlobo, why the newly-released Agricult...
Just, please, stop talking and get on with it
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Goldfield CEO Chris Griffith tells Peter Bruce in this episode of Podcasts from the Edge that he thinks South Africa is still investable but that the ...
It's decision time
09 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You don't hear a lot (or enough) about South Africa's Presidential Climate Commission but it is at the very centre of what happens to us as an economy...
Make the call already
11 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ukraine Ambassador to South Africa, Liubov Abravitova tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that preparations for her President ...
The worst of all
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Analysts and journalists who couldn’t function without Robin McGregor's fine Who Owns Whom were shocked rigid in 2008 when this giant figure was bru...
How would you like your transition Sir? Just, or corrupt?
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When the great and the good are lining up to manage South Africa’s transition from coal fired energy to renewable energy, you just know money is goi...
Gas is just so much hot air...
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Eskom plunges is into load shedding, it is often because it is diverting power to pump water uphill for its storage systems, or filling up the ta...
There is a crack, we must get through
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Climate change is now so severe that unless we speed up our adaptation now, by 2050 more than 250 000 people will die each year directly because of he...
Batteries not included
28 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gas is minerals and energy minister Gwede Mantashe’s New Big Thing. He can barely contain his irritation with the renewable energy lobby as it racks...
Don’t look down
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Valli Moosa, former environment minister and deputy chair of the Presidential Commission on Climate Change, tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podca...
SA has a power problem? Just nuke it.
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Former Eskom chief nuclear officer David Nicholls was once chief engineer on a nuclear submarine. So he isn’t scared of the technology. What does sc...
Cyril's search for just one horse
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
President Cyril Ramaphosa's problem as he approaches ANC elections at the end of this year is which of the two horses he rides -- party unity and clea...
The biggest story of our lives
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Bruce speaks to author and journalist Simon Mundy about his groundbreaking new book, Race For Tomorrow, gripping, real-time dispatches from the ...
Our Hiding To Nothing
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Bruce talks exclusively to Wits vaccinologist and Dean of medicine Prof Shabir Madhi about our response to the Omicron Covid variant. And there ...
And now? What happens now?
22 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is South Africa in a growth crisis or a debt crisis? Economists and experts wildly disagree. One important figure pressing the government to provide m...
Austerity in SA? It’s just not happening...
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re on the Left, or trying to score quick political points, then President Cyril Ramaphosa is imposing a harsh period of fiscal austerity on S...
Stop squatting on South Africa’s spectrum
25 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Listen in as digital entrepreneur and former FNB CEO Michael Jordan joins Peter Bruce on Podcasts From the Edge to make an impassioned plea for Icasa,...
Earth to ANC: Avoid disappointment - lower your expectations
18 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The last election Jacob Zuma fought as leader of the ANC were the local government polls on 2016. The ANC vote collapsed to just over 54% nationally a...
The DA may not have an economic policy but its message this election is new
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Former DA leader Tony Leon tells Peter Bruce on this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that the DA is not selling a value proposition in these current...
Money for nothing and your pills for free
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re running a large workforce and the guy cleaning the entrance to the lift you ride to the top floor has nothing to fall back on when he’s ...
What’s the rush?
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Former Umkonto We Sizwe commander, SanParks boss and Home Affairs director general, Mavuso Msimang is widely recognised as one of the most level-head ...
The day the TV went black
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Arguably the most storied foreign correspondent still working in newspapers, the UK Sunday Times' chief foreign correspondent, Christina Lamb, talks t...
Why Duferco is just walking away
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ludovico Sanges is MD of Duferco, one of the biggest producers of galvanised and coated steel products in South Africa. The corrugated iron on your ro...
Does “intervention” work?
23 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Bruce talks to former UN Special Representative in Afghanistan, Nicholas ‘Fink’ Haysom in this edition of Podcasts From the Edge. Is it wort...
How to tame a bad spy
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With South Africa’s intelligence services found grotesquely wanting before and during the looting and destruction of July President Cyril Ramaphosa ...
Why is clean energy just so, well, exhausting
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re about to buy a new car do you stay with petrol or do the environmentally right thing and go electric? On the face of it not the most compl...
What eye? What needle?
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If there is a rational centre to South African politics, DA leader John Steenhuisen want his party to be in the middle of it. He sees our politics cha...
When the Lions go, where does SA rugby go?
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In many ways, UK Sunday Times rugby writer Stuart Barnes tells Peter Bruce in this latest edition of his Podcasts from the Edge, “professional rugby...
Flying lessons with Minister Pravin Gordhan
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From South African Airways to Eskom’s transition from coal and private investment in South African harbours, the political noise surrounding any mea...
Big job — saving Johannesburg
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There’s no denying Johannesburg has seen better days. It is dirty and broken and now the centre of a Covid-19 firestorm as the Delta variant runs th...
Who’s been a bad boy then?
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How come China gets to be vastly corrupt and grow so strong at the same time? Why can’t we do that in South Africa? Is their corruption better than ...
Will we ever cotton on?
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As Ebrahim Patel ploughs on, recasting South African industry in his own image, good news stories on the ground are hard to find and one of the minist...
Can SA keep up with the Joneses?
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can South Africa compete in the global automotive industry as our economy stutters and stalls while our main car export destinations — Britain and t...
Who do we think we are?
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Bruce gets a history lesson from South Africa’s top economic historian, Prof Keith Breckenridge. Trying to draw parallels between South Africa...
Localisation — is it siege or surge?
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the policy debate around localisation — or import substitution — as a formula for reindustrialising South Africa heats up, the lines are being ...
When Cyril speaks out of both sides of his mouth
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If President Cyril Ramaphosa needed to take anything out of his two-day appearance at the Zondo Commission last week then he would have needed to put ...
The R1 deal that could make or break South Africa
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this latest edition of Podcasts from the Edge Peter Bruce talks to Seriti Resources CEO Mike Teke about the choppy waters suddenly surrounding the ...
Lockdown alcohol bans? The game has suddenly changed.
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Government has banned sales of alcohol for 19 weeks overall since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis in South Africa last year. New research, paid f...
Without Graeme Smith our cricketing future is bleak
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can South Africa’s cricket team, just ten years ago number one in the world, come back from what is clearly a major slump? Are Temba Bavuma and Dean...
Man bites dog: The political news in SA
08 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nothing is harder to divine in South Africa right now than what true true “balance of forces” are inside the ruling African National Congress. Put...
Getting, farming and land right, once and for all
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the latest edition of his Podcasts From The Edge, Peter Bruce speaks to widely-celebrated agricultural economist and government advisor Wandile Sih...
Scrapping for Steel
23 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Doron Barnes has been fighting for steel for as long as he can remember. When he and his dad were running Barnes Fencing two decades ago he was fighti...
Paper Cuts from the Pink ‘Un
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Podcasts from the Edge this week sees Peter Bruce talk to former Financial Times Editor Lionel Barber about his new book “The Powerful and the Damne...
Speaking truth on power
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The government may be looking at procuring nuclear power and the electricity regulator may just have stopped Eskom from buying in power from eight pri...
The IMF can’t help SA. We don’t need dollars!
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Podcasts from the Edge, Former National Treasury Budget Officer director Prof Michael Sachs tells Peter Bruce he doesn’t expect F...
Are we crazy enough to think we can change South Africa?
25 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Listen to author, former newspaper editor and thinker Songezo Zibi talk to Peter Bruce about how to find the political space in South Africa to get us...
Heavy Metal Blues
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why would trade and industry minister Ebrahim Patel slip through a massive 15% import duty on aluminium sheet products in the very last government gaz...
Tough love and real science for Ramaphosa
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Top South African vaccinologist Shabir Mahdi strongly advises against any further strengthening of lockdown regulations in this edition of Podcasts fr...
Why Gidon Novick can’t stop flying
15 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Veteran columnist and newspaper editor Peter Bruce talks to one of South Africa’s most innovative entrepreneurs in this final edition of his Podcast...
To what problem is Afrikaans the solution?
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Veteran newspaper editor and commentator Peter Bruce speaks about the beginnings and future of the Afrikaans language and the people who speak it to T...
Finally, an SOE chairman standing up to political bullying
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Veteran newspaper editor and columnist Peter Bruce talks to SABC chairman Bongumusa Makhathini about the challenges of trying to run the public broadc...
Business and the brink
23 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Veteran Editor and columnist Peter Bruce continues his Podcasts from The Edge with a frank talk to B4SA chair Martin Kingston, who urges the governmen...
How much pressure can Ramaphosa take?
17 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Columnist and former Business Day and Financial Mail editor Peter Bruce continues his new Podcasts From The Edge series in a discussion with journalis...
Helen Zille, still standing...
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Democratic Alliance fedex chairperson Helen Zille tells Peter Bruce why it's perfectly fine to compare Julius Malema and the EFF with Nazi Brownshirts...