So many of you have been calling the show commenting on what Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore is doing in turning the country around. He has been compared to his late predecessor, Thomas Sankara who was assassinated in 1987 after being in power for only four years. He managed to turn that country around by opening up education to all including women, vaccinating millions of people, cutting government spending, planting 10-million trees, reducing cars used by cabinet ministers all in four years. Traore is praised for decolonizing Burkina Faso by enshrining national languages and dropping French in schools and as an official language. Just like Sankara, Traore came into power via a military coup changed so many things in a short space of time. There has been reports of assassination attempts on his life. So to get an understanding of who Ibrahim Traore is and how he compares to Sankara, we thought to invite someone who actually met him…

Guest: David Letsoalo - Sankarist, activist and law academic

A new report by the Teddy Bear Foundation has brought into focus the alarmingly low conviction rates of child abuse cases in South Africa. In the report, only 4% of over 5000 child abuse cases result in convictions. In this hour, we unpack the report and ask if specialized courts are proving an effective intervention to safeguard children's rights

Guest: Dr Shaheda Omar - Executive Director of the TeddyBear Foundation

Guest: Joan van Niekerk - Child Rights Activist

Last week the Independent Electoral Commission, IEC hosted a dialogue at the Nelson Mandela University aimed at finding out why young people are not interested in voting. The dialogue themed: ‘Strengthening democracy though youth participation’, featured academics, the IEC and young people to get them to share their views on how the youth can realise their importance in active participation in democracy. What could we say are some of the factors making young people feel disgruntled to a level where they’ve decided to not vote or register to vote? Also what can be done to change their minds? 

Guest: Professor Ntsikelelo Breakfast - Head of the History and Politics Department at the Nelson Mandela University

Guest: Tshiamo Malatji - A community facilitator at Youth Capital, a campaign advocating for policy change to solve unemployment

Guest: Khayakazi Magudumana - IEC Provincial Electoral Officer in the Eastern Cape

Last week during the openline, several listeners shared their dissatisfaction surrounding how the country’s inability to process its mineral resources. In a mineral rich country like South Africa, its important for us to build our capacity to process its own minerals. Only 30% of natural resources are processed in southern African. The G20 presidency is looking to secure local agreement with G20 members to bolster capacity for minerals and energy extractions.

Our team discovered that there is a state-owned company that processes diamonds and aiming to expand South Africa's diamond cutting and polishing industry. We also discovered a national research organization that supports the mineral processing value chain. To share their work, the opportunities available in their respective industries and the role they play in supporting our economy, we are jooned by…

Guest: Nosiphiwo Mzamo -  Chief Executive Officer of the State Diamond Trader

Guest: Wonder Nyanjowa - Mineral Economist at Mintek

R2,95 trillion has been allocated to the nine provinces and 257 municipalities over the medium term expenditure (up to March 2028). This announcement was made during last week's Budget Speech tabled by Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana. The Minister also highlighted that National Treasury will be issuing grant funding to municipalities based on performance and reward functional municipalities. This is a measure forms part of their commitment to to improve revenue generation, efficiency, and accountability in the lower spheres of governance. President Cyril Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation Address, phase 2 of Operation Vulindlela, the institutional structure of local government, will be reviewed through the updating of the white paper on local government.

Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced phase 2 of Operation Vulindlela, the institutional structure of local government and will review up to 71 municipalities who are under the municipal debt relief programme. The structure will be reviewed through the updating of the white paper on local government and focus on fiscal framework at municipal level. Our next guest is a regular on this segment and has written an article that has raised the importance of structural reform, investment in infrastructure  and investing in human capital to transform local municipalities to impove service delivery. To help us unpack if the budget for municipalities is sufficient and can work towards meeting these expectations, we are joined by…

Guest: Miyelani Holeni - Group Chief Advisor at Ntiyiso

Consulting Group

Guest: Gilbert Musina, President of NAFCOC

The National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry, NAFCOC is this year marking 60 years of existence. They pride themselves as being Africa’s oldest and largest chamber of commerce with great names like Richard Maponya and Dr Sam Matsuenyane at the helm to name a few. Speaking to the current leadership, how do they describe the chamber today and achievement would they say makes them proud? To talk to us on this, we are joined by…

We continue our series on the G20 with Lerato Tsebe looking at how South Africa uses this opportunity of being at the helm for 2025.

Guest:  Lerato Tsebe - Independent African Researcher

Guest: Bruce Collins - Social work supervisor at the Tshwane Regional office (Worked in the substance abuse unit since 1991)

Guest: Nokuthula Maseko - Social work supervisor in Gauteng office of the Department of Social Development

Tuesday ,18th of March marked World Social Work Day. For Citizens Corner we thought to pay homage to social workers and the work they do. They are the people who have to mediate when families are fighting, reconciling young children involved in criminal activity back to their families. Not forgeting their role in helping abused elderly people. There's so much that social workers do that go unnoticed by so many of us. What is a typical day in the life of a social worker? To lead us in this discussion and sharing some of their experience, we are joined by…

Guest: Neptal Khoza - Head of Market Development at Santama

We speak now to some of the companies that have contributed to making the campaign a success over the years as we welcome 

Guest: Dr Jennifer Molwantwa - CEO of the Water Research Commission

South Africa is a water scarce country and is facing aprojected to have a 17% deficit by 2030. Some of contributing factors to our water scarcity challenges include water leaks, wastage and illegal connections. South Africans use 61,8% more water than the world average (up to 279 litres, per day). This conference will be unpacking how water reuse can be a crucial strategy for water security.

Our next guest helps us unpack how experts can help shift our water supply towards a circular water economy. In the circular water economy, the model focuses on the take-make-dispose approach where systems are designed based on the principles of reducing, reusing, recycling, and recovering. To tell us how water reuse can positively influence water security in South Africa, we are joined by…