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In this edition of the NdB Sunday Show, Chris Steyn and independent intelligence analyst Jasmine Opperman talk about testimony at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry that - six days before whistleblowing General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi called his bombshell press conference - President Cyril Ramaphosa had a verbal intelligence briefing in which he was warned of the criminal infiltration, a briefing from which the Intelligence Minister in his office recused herself because of Cabinet ministers being implicated. However, Opperman reveals that there had already been a warning years earlier that was not dealt with. “Was nothing then done because of the party loyalty within the State Security Agency?...It has imploded and it started under Zuma. And this is what I can't understand. It was captured under (President Jacob) Zuma and under President (Cyril) Ramaphosa. Mr. President, I'm saying this with all respect, it has just continued because you were not assertive enough in terms of getting to a solution..” She urges the Madlanga Commission not to finish its jobs without also calling in the intelligence structures. Meanwhile, Opperman describes what it will take to rebuild a credible intelligence service in South Africa.

Yesterday was Friday the 13th. The Ricardo portfolios don’t do superstition. We do cash flow. And this week, a lot of that cash went into buying back shares. Greg Abel spent $9.6bn on Berkshire’s own stock, the clearest signal yet that Buffett’s successor thinks the shares are cheap. Vistra grew core profit by 50%, yet the market prices it as if its signed AI contracts are worth nothing. Reinet and Prosus are both buying their own shares at deep discounts. Plus: what Charles Savage told me about Purple Group’s record year, how HCI is tidying up before the Venus decision, and whether WBHO’s executives earned their R82m share bonus. And a South African surprise: the new Berkshire chairman’s deep relationship with Limpopo.

To sell internet access in South Africa, you first have to show ICASA the race of your shareholders. Sakeliga has now taken the regulator to the Pretoria High Court, but, oddly, not to scrap the 30% black-ownership rule. Chief executive Piet le Roux told Alec Hogg why he chose the narrower fight, why he is no fan of the "equity equivalent" escape route he is asking the court to open, and why he believes local ISPs and radio stations are next in line once Starlink's case is settled. He also answered the question critics keep asking about Elon Musk, explained why voters who tell pollsters they dislike BEE keep backing parties that defend it, and weighed whether a regulator defying its own minister could be the last straw for the GNU.

Rachel Kolisi has spent the past few months on the road in South Africa with Falling Forward, her book and the documentary that followed. Fourteen events and more than 10,000 people later, she is taking the project to London, a move prompted by women who travelled from Europe to attend the South African shows. In an interview with BizNews, she speaks carving out her own identity when brands wanted her at the table as a "two-for-one special," why vulnerability is still judged differently in women and why she will keep preaching financial independence for women until the end of her days. She also names the international women she most admires, with Melinda French Gates at the top of the list. – Linda van Tilburg

Political commentator Solly Moeng tells Chris Steyn that voters who shut the ANC out expect ActionSA and the DA not to cushion it over personal grudges: the ANC belongs on the opposition benches. Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie calls Swimming South Africa one of the country's worst federations, says the Act gives him no power to disband it, and calls Tatjana Smith's switch to the Netherlands a big loss with a big lesson. Plus Dean Macpherson on MK's KZN slide, Haniff Hoosen's 50/50 Durban, Charles Savage on AI writing all Purple Group's code, and Wall Street after Jensen Huang quits.

A year ago, Charles Savage made Alec Hogg a list of promises. This week he came back with Purple Group's best numbers yet: profit before tax up 36%, more than R100 billion in client assets, and nearly R17 billion deposited in a year when markets gave investors far less. So why do some shareholders still want out? Savage made the case that the scale benefits are only starting to show, that his longest-serving clients have grown their wealth faster than Warren Buffett, and that every line of the group's code is now written by AI, without a single job lost. He was also candid about what hasn't worked: a Philippine regulator who still holds the gate, a Kenyan launch that slipped, and crypto dragging on profits. He explained why his own bonus fell in a record year, and gave the advice he'd offer a 16-year-old opening her first account.

Gayton McKenzie spoke to Alec Hogg on the morning the ANC's national executive committee sat to decide its coalition path, and he was ready with a prediction: who would run Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, and which party he believed would be left with nothing. Hours later he was due to sit down alone with DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis, a meeting he traced back to a favour owed to Rob Hersov and a handshake made before a single vote was cast. The Patriotic Alliance more than doubled its council seats yet lost the Eldorado Park ward where it was born, and McKenzie was candid about why he felt it took silver rather than gold. He named the complacency he blamed for George, the one Northern Cape council he said the PA would rather fight a re-election over than hand to the ANC, and the message he sent his own leaders that morning. He closed by taking aim at Swimming South Africa after Tatjana Smith's switch to the Netherlands.

Before the vote, Haniff Hoosen promised to fix Durban by simply not stealing its money. MK then fell well short of a majority, and the DA's mayoral candidate found himself a coalition deal away from the job, or from losing it. He told Alec Hogg whether he'd step aside if his party's head office handed the mayoralty to someone else, why he rated the race a coin toss, which small parties he believed held the city's future, and what he'd tackle first in a city where the taps still run dry. He also named the Durban wards the DA won for the first time, and the ones that slipped away by a few hundred votes.

A month after telling BizNews that MK would fall short in Durban, Dean Macpherson came back to have his crystal ball checked. MK did fall short, and the DA's KZN chairperson said his party, the ANC and the IFP were now just three votes from running eThekwini. But he hadn't forgotten 2021, when small parties promised the DA their support and then handed the mayoralty back to the ANC. He told Alec Hogg how the DA was handling the kingmakers this time, why he believed MK's slide from 45% to about 35% came down to being shut out of the provincial government, what a DA mayor would do in a city with a record budget and 13,000 water leaks, and why he wasn't reading much into reports that Cyril Ramaphosa had cooled on working with the DA.

In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, political commentator Solly Moeng reveals that many “hardcore” ANC members - even ones who have been MPs - voted for ActionSA and the DA in secret so as not to lose their positions or businesses. He says those people now want a coalition between the Action SA and the DA. “So please, political party leaders, forget your personal grudges. Think about why people came to you and not elsewhere. Now, if you take their vote and you decide I'm going to cushion the ANC because I hate the other guys, that's disrespectful...” Moeng also dissects the bombs being dropped at the Madlanga Commission by tenderpreneur Cat Matlala about former Police Minister Bheki Cele, former Deputy National Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya, special leave Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, as well as the President Cyril Ramaphosa’s nephew by marriage, Tembisa tender don Hangwani Morgan Maumela. “There's a lot of accountability that is still not on the table because people have protection at the highest level and the president is not able to speak from a moral high ground about anything because they can also point fingers at him.” Moeng also comments on an alleged plot by IDAC to target whistle-blower General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.