this bus news briefing is brought to you by inves business banking make the move from business as usual to invest business banking it's Thursday the 27th of March I'm Alec Hogan here's your bus news [Music] briefing well the stakes uh in the conflict between South Africa and the Trump Administration just ratcheted up by another 24 billion Rands this morning putting South Africa's entire motor industry at risk what happened Donald Trump has levied 25% import tariff on all motor vehicles that are imported into the United States of America in other words any vehicle any car any Bucky or truck or bus Which South Africa exports quite a bit to the us at the moment anything not made in America you got to pay an extra 25% on at the moment South Africa will be exempt from this by being a member of a Goa uh but it has been doing things that contravene the relationship on a Goa and if it's kicked out of a goer which has been proposed by many within the American political establishment well that would be the end of those exports because putting 25% onto the price of cars being sent there will price them out of the US market uh this uh data that you can see on the screen now from the United nations's com trade shows how important the whole story has become to South Africa in recent times so let's hope that they can find some kind of common ground in the near future while they're looking for common ground that is between the Trump Administration and the Sou African government uh they will be also having a look at what's going on in Black economic empowerment in many respects the ANC was given a free pass over the last 30 years and so some of its policies which have had destructive effects in the country uh including those that are racially based and there are a whole lot of those uh have been ignored primarily by the International Community until now now they're a front and center now they're being focused on and despite the fact that there will be very strong antibodies from those who benefit from be legislation the pressure is mounting and it does appear as though Common Sense might come through at last I spoke this morning with the institute for race relations as head of policy research Dranthia Jeffrey and just to remind you DrJeffrey has degrees from Vitz University Cambridge University and London University so extremely well qualified to make the assumptions and assessments that she has done I think that for very many years the narrative was always that there might be the OD problem with be but really the solution was just to to ratchet up the rules and then to implement it more strongly and then it would be even more successful and I I think there has been a reluctance until now to acknowledge the ENT to which it's widened inequality as you were saying that it helps perhaps 10 15% of the back population the people who are the best skilled the most credentialed often the best politically connected and it's harmed the remaining 85% and I think that realization is really beginning to hit home uh there have always been some acknowledgements of that interestingly some of them coming from very senior figures within thec with praven Gordon back in 201 again for example saying that be hadn't worked hadn't made South Africa Affair as Society had helped the few rather than the many uh and the sacp in 2017 saying that it was the main reason for our Rising guine coefficient because it had so contributed to inra inequality again same picture it's the small group at the top that benefit the great majority who don't and then the gap between the two of them widens so we no do fortunately I think have a widening recognition that be is not working perhaps it's also uh triggered by the fact that we have yet another year of of meager economic growth at . 6% of GDP against population grow of 1. 3% of GDP so obviously the entire population is is getting poorer year by year on a per capita basis we need to break the mold uh and since be is something that deters investment hampers growth worsens unemployment it rarely deserves critical scrutiny and we believe the development of an alternative she mentions the genie coefficient and this is something that is often pointed out about South Africa what it means is that the higher the gene coefficient the greater the inequality between rich and poor that's set at a number of 59 in 1994 it's now up to 63 now so what is the alternative what could be so much better than the disaster we currently have that public support would blow away the efforts of the elite few who want to obviously keep in place laws that put at least 150 billion Rand a year into their pockets and that comes just from the legally enforced premiums in other words the premium that the state can and does pay to them on procurement alone here's DrJeffrey because the Institute has been polling black South Africans on be and on some aspects of of our Eed proposal for a number of years um and with the Eed idea we particularly want to do something that will reach down to the Grassroots that will help the most disadvantaged get ahead by equipping them with better education better Healthcare better housing and international experience shows that you can do that through chat funded vouchers so we've been asking people what do they think about vouches and in our last ping in 2024 week there were 92% of black respondents who rarely liked the idea of schooling VES 83% supported healthc care VES they wanted to have them 80% were in favor of of housing VES and when we asked people if they thought the VES would be more effective than be and helping them to get ahead 81% of black respondents said yes uh and this is consistent picture that goes back to 2016 when we first began asking this question so if if if the uh political parties could tap into what ordinary South Africans think and want and then provide a very clear message that this is what they would introduce if given the part to rule then perhaps this would help to break the loger uh where people know that the the ANC see government is not working for them but they they haven't switched ready considerably to Alternatives yet not enough we saw a big shift of course in the 2024 election but we need a bigger shift still it's a terrific interview it's on bis news TV now go and watch it uh the full interview runs to about 23 minutes Drantha Jeffrey who's head of policy research at The Institute for race relations that voucher idea man it it it resonates with me but maybe it's not the entire solution but what we do know is the be policies that thec is doubling down on at the moment are certainly not a solution they're actually making things even worse well my colleague Chris stain has been keeping an eye on the awful story of the professional Duo who were commissioned to investigate corruption at Fort ha University but after uncovering the facts they were arrested and charged as though they were the criminals they're going to be back in court again on Monday and CH spoke this morning to Bradley Conrad and Sarah Burger now Bradley last time we spoke you said you were going to take action against the police legal action for your arrests and prosecution what what is happening with that so we've submitted our letter of demand which must be done within 6 months if you suing the state we've issued a detailed letter uh against various uh police Commissioners in various provinces just given how the matter has gone um that's on the one hand on the second hand we have formally lodged the complaint with the portfolio committee on police we are demanding an investigation into who ordered our arrest uh why uh uh and why was a jet paid for by the South African public made available to transport Sarah and myself to East London and used on that same weekend to pick up two other acces I think in two different provinces uh and then uh the arrival of I think it would be safe to say hundreds of police people uh uh at court when we appeared the roads were closed there were cars armed guns people with with with armed armed with automatic rifles right down the road because the minister was in town the head of police was in town his entire coort was in town the head of crime intelligence was in town uh all of that while at the same time we know in South Africa hundreds of people are been murdered each and every day women are being abused are being raped um there are home invasions uh uh assaults that we're talking about hundreds per day I've looked at the stats recently and and uh I think you have seen the photographs of the people that came to fetch us uh if you watch the american television the SWAT people have nothing on the people that came storming into my office with ball clovers the helmets R5 rifles Two Pistols stun grenades where are those people when ordinary South Africans are just trying to stay safe uh and that is what I want the portfolio committee to look into and to call those people to Parliament and we have requested that we be allowed to be there because we want to look at them and we want answers from them we are not going to go anywhere they are trying to put us out of business they think that we are going to disappear but they need to know one thing the more they take from us the more they strip us of what we have the more difficult it's going to become for them Sarah and I have one unique advantage over probably thousands of people that sub are subjected to to political abuse in this country we are both lawyers and we are good lawyers I've been a famous lawyer for nearly 20 years I've stood up in the Constitutional Court myself and I've argued precedent setting cases and I've had uh the assistance of Sarah in doing that I do not need lawyers if it ever came down to that and we will not stop we will hold each and every person in this chain accountable within the law they are not going to get away from it they made the biggest mistake ever when they thought they're simply going to do to us what they have done to countless people we have a Constitution which we like to brag to to everyone in the world and say it's the best Constitution I'll tell South Africa now it's utter rubbish uh not the Constitution the enforcement of it it doesn't exist because I couldn't even enforce it I've had so many of my rights abused as a lawyer with access to the best lawyers as friends and colleagues uh those rights do not exist and that is wrong they should be there for everyone what a story and if the White House want any ammunition about things going wrong in South Africa right now sure what you just heard from Bradley Conrad and Sarah Burger remember they were brought in to investigate corruption they had a report and because their report was not what those who brought them in wanted it to be they have now been smeared want to something uh a lot different now and the major criticism against Bitcoin is that it's impractical cannot be used for transaction and as such will never replace paper money that's created by central banks well at the bus news conference earlier this month Stafford Mary delivered a worldclass address you can get that one as well on the uh bus news TV channel on YouTube and he showed how all of this is changing here's a clip from the Q&A where Stafford answers a delegate who wanted to know how someone could use Bitcoin to buy a loaf of bread that's happening go Bitcoin niari it's happening it's go there's a Township here on the coastline close by the old time Township runs on bitcoin um they save in Bitcoin they spend Bitcoin they do haircuts they earn Bitcoin um and what they're using is it's not Bitcoin layer one there's another layer on top of Bitcoin uh we it's L2 layer two and that's the lightning Network and if there's one thing that's not being focused on enough in the world today is the lightning Network and the lightning Network essentially is this beer top layer on top of Bitcoin that abstracts the transaction away from the actual mind happening and it can happen on channels above Bitcoin and when it's finally closed then it happens inside of Bitcoin it's it's I'm not going to explain lightning here but essentially lightning enables hundreds of thousands of transactions a second instantaneously uh on the Bitcoin Network so you know that thing about Bitcoin so slow every 10 minutes we like that we want Bitcoin to be slow we don't want Bitcoin to be fast we want Bitcoin to be tied to energy we want math and physics to do the transaction uh management we don't want some cute Silicon Valley engineer with a couple of machines scaling up transactions we don't want that Bitcoin we want we want the oil tanker to take 20 miles to make a U-turn okay that's why countries like Bitcoin but on the top we want noise we want speed and that's Layer Two that's the lightning Network and that enables people with wallets which live on layer three so they download wallet of satosi moon wallet whatever those wallets are on the top and then they populate those wallets with their Satoshi and they walk around and they spend their Satoshi and that's instantaneous settlement amongst them um and that they're not spending the fees that you see on top of the Bitcoin Network and it's not as slow it's instantaneous settlement are those wallets like your your wallet in your phone yeah you can download it I mean if you have Go download the one that I use is the moon wallet I mean there's wallet of Satoshi mu download it send some Bitcoin into that wallet just send like 10 Rands worth of bitcoin into that a few dois and then when you meet somebody else um just send pay them and see the transaction it's the fastest exchange of value in the history of humanity how many people accept it I mean we got hundreds of millions of people in the world I mean I I did a demo um at a at a conference where I showed uh the utilization of the lightning Network and Bitcoin to take rans over the Bitcoin Network and settle in a pub in pound in a nanc but I'm talking more of what's happening in the African continent for instance is somebody in Malawi able to get value from someone in South Africa through instantaneously yes absolutely yeah instantaneously now remittances is a big but there's more there's remittances is a more multi-dimensional thing but yes remittances is there's quite a few companies right now that are using the Bitcoin lightning network with the with wallet with for remittances um it's happening and really drops the cost of remittance I mean you can send you know what's really cool with this right now remittances is broken because of the transaction fees yeah so if you go to um one of these retailers so you're going to a pep pep allows you to do remittances right you're Zimbabwe and you want to send something to Harari or you're Ghan and you want to send something to Ghana the problem is you have to have at least 800 Rand to 1,500 Rand to actually do a remittance because of the transaction fee and when you do it it's clunky right and it's kind of you you hope it's going to work and when they get it over there they standing in a line waiting if you do it across the Bitcoin Network us utilizing lightning you he could be standing he doesn't have to go to pep he could be standing with his phone and he can send 20 Rand for the loaf of bread when his mom pinged him that she's in the line and she needs to pay for the loaf of bread instantaneously and that will be accepted where she's buying the Lo could provider the merchant accepts it yes and how how many Merchants do accept it well that's growing it's growing more and more Merchants are accepting but now at this point it's it's it's it's infancy that's not where we want I mean pick and pray accepts this Pick and Pay works this way you can go into pick and pray with your luno Valor your moon wallet wallet of satachi and you can go settle inside of a pick and pay for your groceries today and notice the transaction speed when you're there it's faster than your credit card and guess what Pick and Pay gets those Satoshi immediately when you pay with your credit card Pick and Pay gets their money after three to 5 days in the world of business banking the bottom line can often triumph over relationships at invest we value both make the move from business as usual to invest DEC business banking out of the ordinary at Sun exchange we make going solar simple profitable and completely risk-free join over 100 satisfied South African customers already enjoying the benefits of risk-free solar start saving today visit sun exchange.
com and join the solar Revolution hey Stafford he's been a regular at the bus news conferences uh a long time uh friend and business associate of mine and man he's got the inside track there so I would suggest if you are interested in how the world is changing go and watch that video the full recording which is on the biz news TV channel on YouTube uh another interview that's there is the one I had yesterday with Tony Leon I qu quizzed him about how he rated his chances of becoming South Africa's next ambassador to the United States in amongst many other issues that we discussed but I started off with that one because he's been proposed by the DA's Federal Executive chair Helen Zilla well Tony said that he doubted that President ramapa would stray outside his own Circle but if he were offered the job he'd certainly have a close look at the terms and conditions yesterday AR Christain spoke about this ambassadorship with Colonel Chris Wyatt well I'm pretty confident that LE uh Tony Leon would be welcome here he's been in a bachor before he knows the decorum um when rul was first uh made PNG within moments I suggested Tony Leon not that I'm a fan or a Critic I just I know that he's got the demeanor and he's got the gravits and he knows what he's doing he's done it previously and he also won't act the full uh I think he might be campaigning for it I've seen a lot more comments and op EDS from Tony Leon over the past three months so maybe saw this coming but I've seen a lot more in the media from Tony Leon as far as Linda Way suu that would be a step backwards Linda Way suu for those who know South Africa see her as an unaccomplished permanent political pointt that's never done anything and left controversy and failure in every ministerial position she's been in sending her to the US the only thing that she brings with her is her family's name a historic name of course from her parents and that's about it so I think that would be another own goal which means me that's probably who sir Ros will pick L the way to suu I don't think they sit around the same fire to be honest uh can you think of anybody else well that's a good question you know there ought to be some out of the box thinking you know some of the really um now I I'll be accused of personal bias here so but I'll just slay out there someone that would probably be a very good pick for this role who is balanced and and can talk to everyone on all sides and it's always done that in Parliament South Africa and I think also gets internationally this is kind of a you know this is this is a wild card but uh Major General Bantu hamisa I think he's got the right demeanor for it now of course I'll be accused of personal bias I've known him for a long time and we we speak quite a bit but I think he's the right kind of guy look there there are other South Africans could fill this role I mean you know there's there's people in business out there that could be pulled into the role you don't have to be a politician in fact it's better that you're not a politician it's better if you're a successful business person than do have negotiate the the the shs and the shallow Waters of making a big mistake by putting your foot in your mouth [Laughter] B come on anyway I suppose stranger things have happened on to the International Space now in particular in healthcare our partners at The Economist invest a lot of space in the publication in following the latest developments in healthcare and that's an area that gets a lot of attention on our site as well a focus of late has been longevity and and here's a leader from the latest edition of The Economist which unpacks how the war against aging is being fought and how some actually believe that eventually they might overcome death Brian Johnson wants to live forever the American businessman pops 100 pills a day never eats after 11:00 a. m.
