Podcasts from the Edge

Lockdown alcohol bans? The game has suddenly changed.

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 for by Distell but conducted independently of the company, says that not only has that cost the economy R2bn a week in growth and much…

13 Apr 2021 31 min

Without Graeme Smith our cricketing future is bleak

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 Elgar, new captain’s of the men’s short and test forms of the game good enough to take us back to the top?…

16 Mar 2021 36 min

Man bites dog: The political news in SA

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 another way, who is in charge, the cowboys or the crooks? You can make a plausible case for secretary General Ace Magashule being poised to…

8 Mar 2021 36 min

Getting, farming and land right, once and for all

In the latest edition of his Podcasts From The Edge, Peter Bruce speaks to widely-celebrated agricultural economist and government advisor Wandile Sihlobo about South African success in farming, and how that might be built on. We’ve become the second largest citrus exporter in the world. Can we do more of…

1 Mar 2021 43 min

Scrapping for Steel

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 fighting Arcelor Mittal for steel rod to make wire from. Now he’s the owner and boss of Scaw Metals, one of South…

23 Feb 2021 45 min

Paper Cuts from the Pink ‘Un

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 Damned — Private Diaries in Turbulent Times” now widely available in South Africa. The two talk about life in a newsprint newsroom, going full speed…

16 Feb 2021 38 min

Speaking truth on power

The government may be looking at procuring nuclear power and the electricity regulator may just have stopped Eskom from buying in power from eight private sector generators. But that’s just life in South African power generation. UCT’s Prof Anton Eberhard tells Peter Bruce in this fascinating episode of Podcasts From…

8 Feb 2021 37 min

The IMF can’t help SA. We don’t need dollars!

In this episode of Podcasts from the Edge, Former National Treasury Budget Officer director Prof Michael Sachs tells Peter Bruce he doesn’t expect Finance Minister Tito Mboweni to announce tax increases in the budget later this month. Not in the middle of a crisis and not with a resumption in…

2 Feb 2021 37 min

Are we crazy enough to think we can change South Africa?

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 thinking constructively about the future. “Everybody I know is having the same conversation about change,” Zibi says. But how does it start? When?…

25 Jan 2021 38 min

Heavy Metal Blues

Why would trade and industry minister Ebrahim Patel slip through a massive 15% import duty on aluminium sheet products in the very last government gazette of 2020? Is it because the state is the biggest shareholder in Hulamin, our only producer of aluminium sheet products and can’t compete? Why is…

18 Jan 2021 38 min

Tough love and real science for Ramaphosa

Top South African vaccinologist Shabir Mahdi strongly advises against any further strengthening of lockdown regulations in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge with Peter Bruce and ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation. Tougher restrictions won’t work, he says, and we have to keep people outdoors and…

11 Jan 2021 42 min

Why Gidon Novick can’t stop flying

Veteran columnist and newspaper editor Peter Bruce talks to one of South Africa’s most innovative entrepreneurs in this final edition of his Podcasts From The Edge for the year. Gidon Novick, co-founder of Kulula, began carrying passengers in his new domestic airline, Lift, just last week. Believe it or not…

15 Dec 2020 35 min

To what problem is Afrikaans the solution?

Veteran newspaper editor and commentator Peter Bruce speaks about the beginnings and future of the Afrikaans language and the people who speak it to Theuns Eloff, priest, academic, entrepreneur and Afrikaner as the DA prepares to campaign for the re-introduction of Afrikaans as a teaching medium at Stellenbosch University.

8 Dec 2020 44 min

Finally, an SOE chairman standing up to political bullying

Veteran newspaper editor and columnist Peter Bruce talks to SABC chairman Bongumusa Makhathini about the challenges of trying to run the public broadcaster while politicians are determined to boss him around. He is firm that communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams cannot stop the corporation’s retrenchment process even though one last independent…

1 Dec 2020 33 min

Business and the brink

Veteran Editor and columnist Peter Bruce continues his Podcasts from The Edge with a frank talk to B4SA chair Martin Kingston, who urges the government please to just focus for once. Without fast, focussed action South Africa is in trouble and our society is at risk. Is localisation damaging businesses?…

23 Nov 2020 44 min

How much pressure can Ramaphosa take?

Columnist and former Business Day and Financial Mail editor Peter Bruce continues his new Podcasts From The Edge series in a discussion with journalist and veteran ANC watcher Karima Brown. As investors gather for a third round of fund-raising for the country, the President faces a fightback as ANC secretary…

17 Nov 2020 54 min

Helen Zille, still standing...

Democratic Alliance fedex chairperson Helen Zille tells Peter Bruce why it's perfectly fine to compare Julius Malema and the EFF with Nazi Brownshirts, why she wears a mask in public and why Mbali Ntuli still has a future in the DA after losing her party leadership bid to John Steenhuisen.

12 Nov 2020 38 min