South Africa escaped a 20-year, dollar-indexed gas bet on 1 220 MW of floating power. No one in authority stopped it; it collapsed after missing a deadline. The same unexamined bet is now being placed at five times the scale. On 31 July 2025, the Pretoria High Court set aside the three generation licences NERSA had granted in September 2021 to Karpowership’s Coega, Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay projects.[4] NERSA signed a settlement recording that the matter had become academic,…

South Africa finds itself at a critical juncture in the reform of the South African Police Service (SAPS). Recent allegations of corruption, internal factionalism, political interference, and the exposure of criminal networks within policing structures have reinforced a reality many South Africans already understand: police reform can no longer be delayed. Public confidence in the police continues to decline, while concerns regarding accountability, professionalism, and ethical leadership become increasingly pronounced. Against this backdrop, the announcement of the Police Advisory Board…

The coal exit is dated in law. The replacement is not. Three decisions by the energy regulator will determine whether that gap is visible before it becomes a shortfall. To the Chairperson and Members of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa: Within days, the System Operator will publish its Medium-Term System Adequacy Outlook for 2027 to 2031. The Grid Code you administer requires it by 30 October. The first section 34 determination under IRP 2025 cannot bind without your…

The ongoing parliamentary spectacle surrounding suspended National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola brings into sharp, unforgiving focus the fundamental design flaw at the heart of South Africa’s criminal justice administration. The ANC has proposed that Parliament’s ad hoc committee make an adverse finding against Masemola. Their grievance? That he failed to “resist” an allegedly unlawful directive issued by suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu regarding Crime Intelligence positions and the PKTT. In doing so, Parliament is attempting to enforce a textbook…

Something remarkably optimistic is unfolding as Africa’s informal economy is rediscovered. For decades, informal traders, street vendors, domestic workers, casual labourers, home-based producers and small businesses were largely treated as evidence of economic weakness and underdevelopment. Increasingly, however, they are being presented as evidence of entrepreneurial dynamism, resilience, innovation and even an enormous reservoir of untapped wealth. The language has shifted: unemployment is recast as entrepreneurship, precarious livelihoods as flexibility, and informality as an opportunity waiting to be formalised, financed…

Three months ago, I published a paper documenting a gap almost nobody wanted to look at: South Africa’s IRP 2025 commits 6,000 MW of gas-to-power capacity to bridge a 9.5 GW electricity shortfall, and the plan tells you whether that capacity gets built on time — but says nothing about whether the fuel it depends on will be affordable, or how a fuel-cost shock would even be recovered [1]. I called it a compound vulnerability: two structural mechanisms — anticyclonic…

By the time this goes to print, the number may have changed again. As I write, at least nine, possibly ten, women have been found dead in and around Kempton Park since mid-July, most half-naked, several with visible bruising, left along the same stretch of the R21 and its surrounding veld. Police have not confirmed a serial killer, but they have confirmed something almost as chilling: concerning similarities across the deaths. Among them is Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo, 38, who disappeared…

The mass shootings that recently left 17 people dead in Carletonville’s Wedela township and 10 dead in Lwandle, Cape Town, within hours of each other are not merely criminal incidents. They are symptoms of a deeper national disease: the gradual erosion of the state’s ability to anticipate, prevent and respond effectively to violent crime. As the nation mourns, South Africans are once again confronted with a familiar cycle. Political leaders condemn the violence, police announce investigations, promises are made, and…

The United States has long framed its foreign policy as a defence of democratic values and human rights, but the reality is more transactional and considerably less principled than it presents itself, and its effects are felt directly on Namibia’s economy, its citizens and its institutions. It has become increasingly punitive, targeting those who exercise independent judgment with visa bans, aid cuts and economic pressure, while nations that align with American interests are rewarded. For Namibia, this foreign policy does…

Eskom’s recent operational results deserve to be taken at face value, because they are genuinely hard to achieve. The utility has now gone 476 consecutive days without loadshedding. Its year-to-date Energy Availability Factor has climbed to 67,79%, the highest level in six years, while unplanned outages have fallen to 19,47% of capacity, down 7,52 percentage points on the same period last year. Diesel expenditure on emergency open-cycle gas turbines has fallen 81,64% year-on-year, from R5,93 billion to R1,08 billion, and…