Podcasts from the Edge

Complain and campaign

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s complaining press conference on Sunday about how much harder his job is than any other ANC head of state has Peter Bruce struggling to contain his despair. Sure, State Capture, but he was inside it. Yes, Covid was a surprise but nowhere near as big a surprise…

11 Jul 2023 13 min

Cyril’s subtle shuffle shuttle

Either he doesn’t know what an economic mess we are in or he does and is hiding it really well, but President Cyril Ramaphosa has a spring in his step at the moment. It must be all the flying he has been doing in that 20 years old Boeing 737…

27 Jun 2023 12 min

Oh for a peace of the action

It is not only too early to tell whether or not President Cyril Ramaphosa’s peace mission was a success or not, there may be a case for not even trying to tell. He made a few points, his staff sadly made more than they should have and, all in all,…

20 Jun 2023 18 min

Another Brief Encounter

How long will the new “partnership” between the Government and business last? Once the election next May is past, will the government still need it? Right now business is helping lower load shedding and promises to get trains running and the judicial authorities working again. But these partnerships come and…

13 Jun 2023 12 min

The DA bowls me over

A New Democratic Alliance policy document, possibly out this week, threatens to do the impossible and to make the party interesting as a place of progressive ideas again. Given the state the country is in, not a moment too soon. For years the official opposition has been selling “good management”…

6 Jun 2023 13 min

South Africa has a skills problem

South Africans are outraged to find themselves last in a prestigious survey of how well our fourth graders can read for meaning. And they should be angry. But the lack of education may not be, as so many people insist it is, the reason we cannot grow the economy. The…

31 May 2023 15 min

Crimea river

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s peace mission to Russia and what the intelligence ministry in his office calls “the” Ukraine next month is headed for the rocks almost before it sets sail. It will make the Russians look good (that’s probably the intent) and the Ukranians couldn’t very well be seen saying…

24 May 2023 12 min

A Brigety too far…

Apology or not from the US ambassador in SA, the governments slack handling of the visit of the Russian freighter, the Lady R, to the Simon’s Town naval base last year has become a huge deal from which there is no easy out. The American position continues to be that…

17 May 2023 21 min

Leadership is about the country, not the party

The one lesson we can take out of the mess in the Johannesburg City Council is that leadership in local government doesn’t always come with a mayoral chain. The DA is stuck with the notion that because it's the biggest party it should also be the mayor. But that’s being…

9 May 2023 14 min

When you see a fork in the road, take it

Trade is the end of the process of dreaming, investing, creating jobs and making things other people want to buy. In South Africa though the obvious seldom has right of way. In this episode of Podcasts from the Edge, South Africa's leading trade consultant, Donald MacKay, head of XA Global…

12 Apr 2023 41 min

The Book of John

Newly re-elected Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen went out on a very long limb at the end of the party’s Midrand congress on Sunday, putting his job on the line for an extremely short term objective — preventing the formation of a coalition government between the ANC and the EFF…

3 Apr 2023 11 min

Heaven will have to wait

We're stressed and anxious. The State is barely functional and in many places it has already failed. While a new minister tours power plants his old, formerly absolutely vital, job is unfilled. While the private sector could fix or make a real difference to the country in weeks if not…

29 Mar 2023 15 min

What Was That?

The EFF’s National Shutdown on Monday was a political failure and, if anything, argues Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge, would end up strengthening the ANC and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s hand if it is ever repeated. Who would have thought a politician normally as tactically astute…

22 Mar 2023 10 min

How a stinking government kills its children

Peter Bruce is enraged in this episode of Podcasts from the Edge by the absolutely needless death of a four-year-old girl, Langalam Viki. She fell into a pit latrine in her Eastern Cape school last week and drowned. He wants to know why the government, despite all its promises and…

14 Mar 2023 12 min

A Hiding To Nothing

Peter Bruce despairs of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s late night reshuffle in this latest edition of Podcasts from the Edge. The new Electricity Minister, Prof Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, was just down the corridor running Ramaphosa’s infrastructure programme. If the Electricity State of Disaster he announced a month ago was so urgent why…

7 Mar 2023 19 min

The writing on the wall…

Peter Bruce goes solo again in this new edition of Podcasts from the Edge, suggesting that former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter’s revelations about corruption inside Eskom and the direct involvement of cabinet ministers is probably the real reason President Cyril Ramaphosa is being so slow to name a new…

28 Feb 2023 15 min

Absolute zero

There is "almost zero chance" Eskom or another intervening authority, can end load shedding in South Africa any time in the next two years, one of South Africa’s leading energy experts, UCT's Prof Anton Eberhard, tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge. He says President Cyril…

21 Feb 2023 30 min

Send in the Clowns...

That used to be theatre-speak for when something went wrong on stage and the crowd began to boo. At South African Tourism there seems to be no need. In this episode of Podcasts from the Edge Peter Bruce digs in to the would wide web (i.e. his phone) to find…

13 Feb 2023 14 min

True Crime Stories

In his first podcast monologue Peter Bruce takes his Podcasts from the Edge into new realms. Basically because a guest didn’t pitch up he wonders pout loud when President Cyril “The Vanisher” Ramaphosa's reshuffle is going to happen or even if it ever will. Rumours have Gwede Mantashe keeping his…

6 Feb 2023 10 min

Say what?

Veteran energy analyst and journalist (and electrical engineer) Chris Yelland tells Peter Bruce in this illuminating edition of Podcasts From the Edge that it is going to take something special for Eskom to meet the exacting deadlines it has set itself to restore Eskom’s vanishing Energy Availability Factor. Fixing the…

24 Jan 2023 49 min