The Daily Discourse

Yesterday President Cyril Ramaphosa announced his new cabinet amid uncertainty about the positions of Pravin Gordhan and David Mabuza. The president announced that half the 28 ministers are women. He also announced a number of young people have been placed in ministerial positions - including Ronald Lamola as Justice Minister. This morning on the Talking Point we will examine the composition of President Ramaphosa's new cabinet and also examine the state of women representation in Parliament, this as women also continue to remain a minority in higher-ranking positions...

GUEST: Sanusha Naidu, Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Global Dialogue

According to a study by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a total of 5.3 million South Africans under the age of 50 are HIV-positive. South Africa’s HIV adult prevalence rate IS much higher than most other countries, including Kenya (5.6%), Nigeria (3%), Namibia (13.8%), Zimbabwe (13.5%) and Mozambique (11.9%). Today we ask, will we ever be an HIV free generation?

GUEST: Prof Sue Goldstein – Associate Professor at the School of public health at the University of Witwatersrand HIV researcher (WITS)
GUEST: Lebogang Brenda Motsumi – Author, speaker and HIV activist

The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) and Statistics SA have ventured into a combined project of collecting statistics on commercial and non-commercial farmers. The Producer/Farmer Register has been built as a result. In addition, the department has other programmes with which it aims to drive the agricultural agenda forward. To unpack these as well as the register, we now speak to Harriet Mabokela, Director General of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF)

GUEST: Mike Mlengana, Director-general of the department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries (DAFF)

While the new national minimum wage took effect this year, millions of workers are still reliant on the country’s collective bargaining system where trade unions and employers negotiate for wage increases and improvements to various conditions of employment. During the 1980’s most wage negotiations were done annually at company level. However, over the past two decades most workers’ and union wage agreements are for a 3-year period and dealt with at centralized bargaining council level. This year there are a few negotiations taking place in key sectors such as platinum mining and a few major ones in 2020? In today’s show we get an overview of wage negotiations in 2019 and 2020 and what we can expect. With us to discuss this we have…

GUEST: Ms Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, spokesperson for the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa)

GUEST: George Mthethwa, of the Labour Research Service

It’s clear the we live in a digital world and technology is consistently growing and changing. How are we ensuring that artificial intelligence enhance human work and Why is digital education important when it comes to growing businesses?

GUEST: Julie Tregurtha – Regional vice president for Africa at OpenText.

Last week we launched our new feature Water is Life. We did so cognizant of the fact that South Africa is a water scarce country and guided by research on the ever so present threat of global warming. This feature therefore looks at the role of water boards in water collection, preservation and distribution. We also look at service delivery at these water utilities - their ability to connect South Africans to piped water, prevent water wastage, provide clean water as well as management. These are state owned entities and we all know the challenges that some of the SOE’s go through.There are 12 water boards in South Africa and we will try and cover all of them, if possible. We started with Mhlathuze Water in Northern KwaZulu Natal last week and today we look at Magalies Water in the North West in Rustenburg

GUEST: Adv. Mosotho Petlane - Magalies Water Board

We are now in conversation with Arina Muresan, a Researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Association with UNISA, and a contributor to the African First Ladies Database to take a close look at the role played by the wives of heads of state in Africa and how they have wielded influence. This discussion is centred on three prominent women in politics; Grace Mugabe, who was the President of the ZANU-PF Women's League, Denise Nkurunziza, who led the Burundi ruling party's Women's League and Janet Museveni, who was appointed as Minister of State for Karamoja by her husband in 2009. This morning we will analyse the functions, roles, strategies and agency of some of Africa's most influential First Ladies, as the role played by the wives of heads of state in Africa has been largely ignored.

GUEST: Arina Muresan, a Researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Association with UNISA, and a contributor to the African First Ladies Database

Shootings at taxi ranks, mainly around taxi violence have been happening for years. On Saturday at Bree Taxi rank, a man (who is a hawker) was shot in the face allegedly by a man who claimed to be from a security company. Today we ask, how do we ensure the safety of commuters, hawkers and those in public places like taxi ranks?

Guest: Wayne Minnaar, JMPD Spokesperson
GUEST: Ralph Jones, secretary general of the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco)

As this is the last Tuesday of the month, we will be dealing with questions that have come in during the month that are of a similar nature.

GUEST : Bryan Hirsch, Chairperson of Bryan Hirsch, Colley & Associates (Pty) Limited

The EFF has accused the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation of only defending Indian people after the organisation criticized the Public Protector's decision against Minister Pravin Gordhan. This after the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation shared growing concern over the competence and ability of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to discharge her office's constitutional and legal obligations.

GUEST: Dr Seth Cooper, who is the President of the Pan-African Psychology Union