BizNews Radio

Sustaining a criminal enterprise requires lots of cash to pay bribes. The Zondo Commission report details how controversial facilities management group Bosasa, almost turned getting their hands on cash into a full-time gig, paying almost R76m to South Africa's corrupt over 16 years.

The third tranche of findings to come out of the State Capture Inquiry is divided into four volumes and deals exclusively with various aspects of Bosasa's alleged criminality. In total, the third volume is close to a thousand pages, making it impossible to digest into one explainer piece.

Between 2000 and 2016, Bosasa would rake in over R2.3bn in tenders. According to Bosasa's former Chief Operations Officer, Angelo Agrizzi, the company paid out millions in bribes to government officials, ANC heavyweights and functionaries within state-owned entities.

In part one of this explainer series on Bosasa, the vast majority of evidence you’ll hear comes from Agrizzi. He spent more time on the stand at the inquiry than any other witness - a total of 13 days. Inquiry Chairperson Raymond Zondo ultimately found that Agrizzi’s evidence is corroborated in various respects by the testimony of other witnesses, documentary and video proof.

For the video version of this explainer click here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SA's exponentially expanding bank today released audited results and the annual report just six weeks after its February yearend. This is a discipline CEO Gerrie Fourie says helps his team get the investor-related compliance done early into the new financial year, allowing them to get back to what they love - actually running the business. In this podcast, Fourie shares the back story to Capitec's continued growth, highlighted by a 16% bottom line improvement since before Covid, a rare achievement for a major SA company. Among the surprises is a new notes-swapping engagement on customer-centricity with global icon Amazon.com. Although they're supposedly in different sectors, Fourie reckons these two businesses have much in common through a joint obsession for putting customers at the centre of their worlds; the use of Big Data; and the way both apply AI and Machine Learning. He says Capitec has learnt a lot from Amazon, and vice versa. Plenty more in Fourie's fascinating discourse with BizNews editor Alec Hogg. Plus a future outlook sure to satisfy its delighted shareholders who have enjoyed an almost 3x share price surge in the share price - from 2020's R850 a share to the current to R2 300.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Capital, controlling shareholder of Easy Equities, became a firm favourite among BizNews community members after CEO Charles Savage delivered an impressive keynote at BNC#2. At that time, the shares were easy to accumulate at 80c each, Little more than a year later, they trade at over three times that price. Even so, it's unlikely many of the BizNews tribe would consider taking profits. Especially so after reflecting on this podcast where Savage unpacks interim results released today - and shares his excitement about an ever sharper acceleration in the months ahead: Five new disruptive financial products being offered to the continuously expanding base now 750,000 active clients (target is 4.5m in SA); launches in Kenya and the Philippines; and rolling out of needle-moving partnerships with Discovery Bank and Telkom. Little wonder SA's "investment democratiser" keeps accumulating fans.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Four years ago, Naude Rademan and Nick Hoffman, long-time supply chain warehouse logistics and supply chain executives, founded Linebooker, the 'Uber' of trucking. They used their insights to work out a tech-driven solution for some obvious problems for both transporters and those who needed freight moved. Backed by Patrice Motsepe's African Rainbow Capital, their disruptive business has boomed, and is continuing to grow exponentially as participants in the highly fragmented industry become exposed to the benefits of greater efficiencies, lower cost and improved cash flow.. In this podcast, Rademan takes BizNews editor Alec Hogg through the business model which has already made Linebooker into an operation rivalling SA's Big Four logistics groups - and explains why it is delivering over 10% a month compounded growth that's expected to continue for years to come.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent survey from Agri SA has found South Africa's rapidly dilapidating road infrastructure is having dire consequences on the agricultural sector. Over 300 farmers across the five worst-affected provinces participated in the survey. Farmers said they relied on road transportation to move an average of 94% of their produce. On average, participants transported an estimated R23m worth of agricultural produce by road in the last financial year for a combined total of more than R7.1bn. That's just among the participants of the survey. Almost 70% of respondents indicated trying to fix the roads themselves at a cost of R200 000 per respondent. Dr Jack Armour, the Commercial Manager of Free State Agriculture, an affiliate of Agri SA, told BizNews that tar and gravel roads in his province are in a very poor condition presenting a threat, not only to agriculture as a sector, but to the lives of communities as a whole.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The best investment returns are being generated by smaller, more nimble money managers according to David Bacher of Corion Capital whose tables for March have just been released. In this podcast, Bacher explains how asset managers are reacting to the new regulation which raises the offshore component from 30% to 45% - and why SA's Big Three managers, Allan Gray, Coronation and Ninety One - are struggling to match the returns generated by smaller competitors.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Automobile Association (AA) has welcomed the R1.50 reduction of the General Fuel Levy (GFL), but warns the temporary reprieve may only be holding back inevitable pain coming the way of consumers. As of midnight on Tuesday, the price of 93 octane increases by 28c/l, while there's a jump of 36c/l for 95 octane. April sees a mammoth increase in diesel of between R1.52/l and R1.69/l. AA spokesperson Layton Beard told BizNews the announcement by the Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to cut the GFL came as somewhat of a surprise but is certainly positive for consumers, at least for now. How exactly the government plans to mitigate record-high increases going into June remains the question.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

South African consumers have been given some cushioning from rapidly increasingly fuel prices by a recent announcement from Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. He said in Parliament that Treasury would cut its collection on the General Fuel Levy (GFL) by R1.50 in April and May 2022. The shortfall of over R6bn to the fiscus, as a result of this temporary reprieve, will be made up by the sale of some of South Africa's strategic oil reserves. Cobus Lubbe, who spent over 23 years in the oil and gas industry at both Engen and Shell, says while recent comments from Godongwana that government plans to fully deregulate the fuel industry should be welcomed, we need to be realistic about what that means for the economy.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Gift of the Givers Foundation is the largest disaster response NGO of African origin and its founder, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman has only one criteria when he considers whether he should go and help; he serves humanity. And when he got the call from Nataliya Venter, the Ukrainian wife of South African De Villiers Venter; Gift of the Givers sprang into action to help Ukraine. Since the start of their Ukrainian intervention, Dr Sooliman and his team have partnered with Ukrainian and Romanian aid organisation and have expanded their operations to reach deep into the war-torn country to help coordinate aid efforts, supply fuel, save dogs and make sure that elderly people who are trapped, can be fed. Dr Sooliman told Linda van Tilburg about his venture into Ukraine and how the foundation has never stopped feeding the hunger and their supplies to hospitals in South Africa. He is a man on a mission and his rapid-fire lists of the efforts that they are involved in, are a glowing testimony to this incredible organisation which is as heroic as the people of Ukraine who stood up to the aggression by their much more powerful neighbour.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After being called bullish about the Rand; TreasuryOne’s currency expert Andre Cilliers is confident that the rand can remain entrenched between R14.50 and R14.85 in the near term. He told Biznews that the Rand strength is supported by peace talks between Russia and Ukraine and although people tend to forget what the impact of the war is as it drags on; it is still very much at the forefront. Cilliers also weighs on Moody's revision of the country's outlook to stable, and on the impact on the economy of billions of rands that was returned to the Treasury by the North West and other provinces.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices