Daily Maverick

DA power play

John Steenhuisen took over the DA leadership from Mmusi Maimane to stabilise the party’s support base, particularly white Afrikaners, who felt sidelined by Maimane’s attempts to attract new voters. Seven years later, this same constituency has largely...

By Helena Nell

A Nepali climbing guide thought to have died on Mount Everest was found crawling down to Base Camp six days after he was last seen alive, the BBC reports. Dawa Sherpa was last seen above Camp 3, at about 7,500m, while coming down the mountain after...

Bafana back on the world stage

Bafana back on the world stage

‘GODZILLA’ Monster King of El Niño

Southern Africa’s history is heavily marked with the spoor of the El Niño weather phenomenon. And with a potentially monster version expected to emerge in the coming weeks, the trail it points to is mostly one of hunger, economic hardship,...

SA’s COCAINE shame

There have been major drug crackdowns in South Africa recently, reaffirming how the country is intricately entwined with global cartel activity. A R1-billion methamphetamine manufacturing facility was discovered in North West, and a multimillion-rand...

BIG BUSINESS'S BUFFALO SOLDIER

Sometimes I think about the buffalo. I think about them roaming the plains of Sudan, cowering from swarms of Emirati drones as an inscrutable war unfolds around them. Do they pine for the relative safety of home, for the Phala Phala farm where they...

How SA scientists hunted the virus that caused the cruise ship outbreak

How SA scientists hunted the virus that caused the cruise ship outbreak

Sins of pastors revealed

Bribery, fraud, shady meetings in a fast-food restaurant and the misuse of religious contributions by foreign pastors in South Africa are highlighted in the full interim report on a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation into the Department of...

Billions down the drain

Express kidnappings skyrocket

The murder of Steven Gruzd (53) in a suspected “express kidnapping” case in Johannesburg in March has raised alarm bells, underscoring the urgent need for decisive intervention. Gruzd was a prominent member of the South African Jewish community and...

How the ANC is undermining the GNU

How the ANC is undermining the GNU

PLANET CAPTURE

The Iran conflict exposes the insider trading scam that supports the war profiteering engulfing the world

WED

for example, skew notably young. The average employee age at Bytedance, Tiktok’s parent company, was 27, and at Alibaba and Huawei it was 31, according to 2021 data from a Chinese job platform. A middle-class 55-year-old tech worker who tried to get a...

‘I told you so’

There is nothing little about Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe’s... er... finger. But he is, of course, quite optimistic that the chaos in the energy market right now could firm the ground up for a local oil and gas ladder to...

Cape Town vs Jozi

For years, I’ve maintained that Johannesburg and Cape Town are two separate planets, spinning on different axes. The December migration used to be oneway and predictable: GP number plates filling Cape Town streets, eye-rolls from locals about “Gauties”...

BEWARE OF Gayton’s TRUMP card

Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton Mckenzie says his party’s campaign for the upcoming local government elections is “the most important” – and he’s right. Voters will have to decide which parties can provide the capable leadership that is necessary...

SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter ends his tenure on a high note with public trust above 75% and record revenues saving taxpayers from increases this year

On 1 May 2019, Edward Kieswetter walked into the South African Revenue Service (SARS) with a mandate that was as much moral as it was fiscal. The revenue authority had been hollowed out by years of governance failure. Public trust had slipped below...

Middle-class homeowners squeezed as municipal bills in 250% Cape Town escalate by over 10 years

Cape Town homeowners who do not qualify for income-linked rebates are paying municipal bills that may have risen on average about 250% over the past decade as a result of spiralling property valuations and a wave of new fixed charges that did not exist...

Out with the old, in with the new

PAGES 4 & 5

Dear John...

When John Steenhuisen stood before the party faithful on Wednesday, 4 February, to announce he would not make himself available for re-election as DA leader, there was a certain Shakespearean element to the moment. The rules of engagement for internal...

18 Months of the GNU Is it finally growing up?

South Africa’s 18-month-old Government of National Unity (GNU) has hobbled from one crisis to the next since it was established on 14 June 2024. But as preparations for another State of the Nation Address (Sona) and Budget begin, the big question is...

Haunted by Epstein horror

Traumatic memory is a tricky beast. It doesn’t unfold neatly in a clean sequence. It lives in the nervous system, triggered by a sound, a smell, a word, a fragment. Short. Sharp. Staccato. Juliette Bryant’s most visceral memory begins with one instant...

South Africa is at a crossroads (again)

Will 2026 be the year we reverse the deal with the devil?

The state of our beaches

As the summer months bring blue skies and soaring temperatures across the Northern and Western Cape, locals and tourists alike are flocking to the many picturesque beaches the coastline has to offer. Municipalities are taking steps to ensure public...

GATVOL Minister, we are with the number of murders in SA

Lefa Moino (21) was murdered in Johannesburg in November. His mother, Sarha, has a message for the police minister: “I don’t know if the official crime stats mean anything at all to me. We see people die daily right where we live, and it’s not just...

168 HOURS in 5 MINUTES

FRI NOVEMBER 21 Unicef warns that more than 417 million children in the world face severe deprivation. According to a report released yesterday, more than 19% of the world’s children live in extreme poverty. One in five children lives on less than $3...

Cyril’s G20 MEGAPHONE

The headlines ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg have been dominated by the US’S attacks on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s G20 priorities and even South Africa’s core agenda of solidarity, equality and sustainability – and its push for a...

A century of Siya

Given the odds against him, Siya Kolisi should not have played one Test match, never mind 100. But on Saturday night, 8 November, in the hostile cauldron of the Stade de France, against a French team hell-bent on revenge, the Springbok captain will...

How the world is being split in two over women’s rights

Ahighly organised and well-funded campaign to strip women of their rights is gaining global momentum. “Reject harmful sex education in South Africa!” reads the headline of a petition launched in August this year. “The South African Department of Basic...

Police violence SHO TS UP

Former EC police commissioner Nomthetheleli Mene, who retired at the end of February.

BAD blood and cocaine killings

Several celebrity murders and a R200million drug consignment stolen from a police building during a power cut now connect different parts of South Africa’s seismic law enforcement scandal. This week, suspended deputy national commissioner of crime...

The battle to win Jozi heats up

Johannesburg, South Africa’s grand dame city, is tilting – and political heavyweights from Helen Zille to Herman Mashaba are lining up for the job everyone calls a poisoned chalice. Exclusive new data from the Ipsos Khayabus survey shows that Gauteng...

Unearthing POLICING skulduggery

Calvin Rafadi recalls the last time he saw Tshwane entrepreneur Jerry Boshoga – it was several weeks, possibly months, before Boshoga was reported as having been kidnapped in Centurion. When Rafadi saw him, Boshoga was with Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, who...

Nowhere to run

‘Now this bomb has exploded in their faces, now they have nowhere to run – at the expense of my husband’s life.” These are the words of Nicolette Kinnear, the widow of senior detective Charl Kinnear, who was assassinated five years ago. She was...

JOBS BLOODBATH

Right now, in an unassuming building at Durban harbour, crews haul in albacore and bluefin tuna destined for American tables. For decades, this “Cinderella industry,” as veteran trader Richard Kramer describes it, quietly sustained thousands of...

science of HIATE The SPEECH

Forensic linguistics was used to prove that EFF leader Julius Malema was guilty of hate speech when he incited violence against a white man who was involved in a violent fight with EFF protesters in Brackenfell in 2020. The South African Human Rights...

R7.2bn Could this be the game-changer SA education needs?

When Jan Mouton, son of Jannie Mouton and spokesperson for the family foundation, explained to Daily Maverick why they were offering R7.2-billion for Curro Holdings, he kept insisting on one word: donation. Not “buyout”, not “takeover”, not...

Busting corruption one tip-off at a time

How citizen whistleblowers are helping Prof Koleka Mlisana and her team clean up the National Health Laboratory Service

Giving up is not an option

Gift of the Givers founder and Eminent Persons Group (EPG) member Dr Imtiaz Sooliman says he is optimistic about the National Dialogue. He told Daily Maverick that although there was “lots of negativity and pessimism” about the proliferation of...

D-DAY FOR Trump ’s 30 % TARIFFS and what it means for SA

South Africa is confronting the most critical moment in its fraught relations with the US, staring at exports worth almost $10-billion being exposed to stiff tariffs that risk making these goods uncompetitive. That is the estimated value of South...

CR17 campaign linked to kingpin in Mkhwanazi scandal

He is the shadowy figure at the heart of explosive allegations made by Kwazulu-natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi – and in the past, he has aligned himself strongly with the politics of President Cyril Ramaphosa. Media reports from around...

WE are the HOPE SA needs

Entle Mcasi “I would call for unity among GNU parties to prioritise the nation’s welfare over political differences,” said Entle Mcasi, a student at CPUT. “Act decisively against corruption in politics and policing. To combat crime, I’d strengthen...

Mkhwanazi’s smoking guns

A ballistic report allegedly linking an AK-47 and a pistol to a Transnet corruption cover-up murder, and the shootings of high-profile public figures, add weight to the KZN police commissioner’s claims of a criminal octopus with tentacles reaching deep...

Moms SCORE WIN against Hell Affairs

In a shocking case filed at the High Court in Cape Town, the Children’s Institute, representing 15 mothers and caregivers, has highlighted the administrative abuse that mothers face when trying to register the births of their babies when the child is...

Irangate SHOWDOWN final

More than two decades since Iran issued its first private mobile network licence, a tangled web of geopolitics, bribery allegations and courtroom battles has landed squarely at the feet of South Africa’s Constitutional Court. First, some background....

Two by Twos church workers who PREY on children

Asecretive fundamentalist Christian sect, widely known as the Two by Twos but also as the No-name Church, The Truth, or The Way, has been rocked by an international child sexual abuse and rape scandal. Because of the secretive nature of the sect, as...

After 1 year of GNU where to?

When the government of national unity (GNU) was unveiled after the May 2024 election, it was hailed as a political miracle. The rand perked up. Longterm interest rates softened. Investors briefly rediscovered the word “confidence”. President Cyril...

168 HOURS in 5 MINUTES By Delia Langenhoven

FRI MAY 30 TUES JUNE 03 Elon Musk said tata to US President Trump on Friday while displaying a conspicuous shiner. It comes after he publicly criticised Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill that’s before Congress, reports the BBC. However, Trump...

Our MISSING children CRISIS

Zama Nkabinde is one of thousands of parents living with the pain of a missing child. It has been 15 years since her daughter, Amahle, disappeared without a trace. At the time, four-year-old Amahle was living in a place of safety with her brother,...

Ramaphosa gets braaied at the BOEREWORS Summit

There is a genre of comedy, probably as old as laughter itself, that asks the audience to baste in the sauce of the protagonist’s humiliation. Not being a classicist, I have no idea if this kind of thing appeared in, say, Euripides; not being an...

War of words

President Cyril Ramaphosa will have a high-stakes encounter with President Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday, 21 May, which could either reset South Africa’s dreadful relations with the US – or could become a disastrous Zelensky-style...

Will the Employment Equity Act or the DA’S court challenge do better than BEE or B-BBEE to create more skilled jobs for all South Africans?

At the dawn of democracy, economic power in South Africa remained firmly in white hands, despite the fall of apartheid. The ruling ANC adopted black economic empowerment (BEE) as a policy to change that. Initially focused on ownership, often via...

Paying for political influence

Daily Maverick has identified at least five different political campaigns running on X in April seemingly being driven by people paid to post. When Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced on 24 April that the VAT hike was being scrapped, almost all...

VOTERS GATVOL OF GNU FEUDS

Political parties were quick to claim victory after the National Treasury’s announcement in the early hours of Thursday, 24 April, that the 0.5 percentage point VAT increase would be scrapped. “While some continued to play politics, Actionsa made...

South Africans are not your crash test dummies

Anew strategy to combat the sky-high number of drunk drivers on South Africa’s roads will be tested for the first time this Easter after a disastrous festive season four months ago, the Department of Transport has announced. According to the Road...

Police minister takes aim at private security guns

South Africa’s booming private security sector is about to change. If proposed draft amendments to Private Security Industry Regulations are enacted, armed officers at malls may become a thing of the past. And if there’s a violent protest, private...

Cheatgpt CRISIS in SA universities

Students’ use of AI to scam their way to a degree is reaching epidemic proportions in our higher learning institutions

Our privacy laws are shielding sex criminals

Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Mmamoloko Kubayi has had to shelve her plan to publish the National Register for Sex Offenders (NRSO) by the end of February because offenders’ privacy needs to be protected. Individuals named in the...

Shocking CO$T of National Health Lab HACK ATTACK

In damning evidence before Parliament this month, the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) admitted that its IT systems were out of date and could not be updated, and its staff were not fully apprised of the danger of clicking on unknown links...

How the BUDGET AFFECTS YOU

After weeks of political brinkmanship, contentious debates and an unprecedented failed presentation, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana finally tabled the revised 2025/26 Budget on Wednesday, 12 March. The significant backlash against the initial 2%...

STARVING for a degree

In the coming weeks, thousands of university students will walk across a stage, proudly accepting their degrees and diplomas. For many, this achievement will be marred by a struggle with hunger. A final-year BA student at the Durban University of...

The plan to stop SA’S JAIL HOUSE ROT

Minister Pieter Groenewald and prison bosses crack down on SA’S jail contraband – 41,000 phones, booze, drugs and tattoo machines smuggled in as inmates fuel organised crime

BOER soek nog ‘n Trump-soort ou

Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands ahoy: the Solidarity Movement is taking its campaign on the road. The movement is the umbrella body for a range of Afrikaans interest groups including Afriforum and the union Solidarity, and it includes the...

All systems go for SA’S G20

Despite Trump’s tantrums over SA’S Expropriation Act and the claims about our government treating ‘certain classes of people badly’, foreign affairs ministers will be in Joburg for the G20 meeting

Alcohol can lead you to kill or hurt your loved ones

An Eastern Cape high court judge has asked Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi to consider adding a warning about domestic violence to the labels on all liquor bottles and cans, including beer. In the High Court in Makhanda, Judge Avinash Govindjee...

FAiled State of the MK nation

Aweek before the State of the Nation Address (Sona), this is the state of the official opposition led by former president Jacob Zuma. Launched on 16 December 2023, the umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party reshaped the country’s political landscape, garnering...

The Trump effect

US President Donald Trump’s move to reshape US policies on foreign assistance, trade, health and the environment have big implications for South Africa and the region. The flurry of executive orders that Trump signed in the White House on Monday, 20...

Meet the everyday HEROES behind our matric success

Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube announced this week that the matric class of 2024 achieved an 87.3% pass rate, surpassing the 82.9% recorded in 2023. Every province improved its performance from the previous year, and each achieved a pass rate...

SA HANGS BY A THREAD OF HOPE IN A WORD UP IN SMOKE

Every year in South African politics is bonkers in ways that rapidly become normalised. To give just two examples: in 2013, a radical new party enters Parliament dressed in the uniforms of labourers and domestic workers. In 2017, the country discovers...

SA’S CLEANEST swimming beaches this summer

As summer takes hold with sunny skies and balmy temperatures, beaches all over the Western Cape are filling up with locals and tourists looking to enjoy the coastal waters. Municipalities have issued statements to assure the public of the water’s...

THE MK PARTY’S YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY

On 16 December 2023, former president Jacob Zuma unveiled his new party, umkhonto wesizwe (MK), declaring a political war to be fought with ballots, not bullets, in the name of radical change. A year later, although the party hasn’t reached the top, it...

FLYING BLIND

For Michele*, it was supposed to be a routine and stress-free Flysafair flight from Johannesburg to George in the Western Cape in October. A two-hour flight such as this is uncomplicated, apart from a bumpy ride here and there caused by turbulence,...

Guess who else got wet & blessed by Louis?

An explosive, first-hand witness account by Hein Jooste, security boss for alleged diamond scheme fraudster Louis Liebenberg, sketches an astounding portrait of a self-absorbed huckster with a Donald Trump-like appetite for power, corruption and...

Fatal FENTANYL hits SA

Aflat rectangular package weighing 72kg was intercepted at Mexico’s Benito Juárez International Airport at the end of September. According to a statement the airport released at the time, the package contained methamphetamine and it was destined for...