SA govt pushes beneficiation drive at Mining Indaba and companies tighten pay & bonus policies in 2026

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
And now The Money Show with Stephen credits on seven
oh two.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Let's walk at all.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
The Money Show with Stephen Curtis is brought to you
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Good evening, Welcome to the program. I'm Stephen Curtis. Eight
minutes after six A reminder you might have thought you misheard,
we really are speaking to Temper Bevooma after seven point thirty.
Really looking forward to that conversation. He is your shape

(00:29):
shifter on The Money Show tonight. Lots to talk to
him about about leadership, about strategy, about working with people,
about making sure you're surrounded by the right people, all
of that. So quite excited actually to speak to Temper
Bevoma this evening. You can expect a question on the
future of test cricket, because you know Toler Keller and
I disagree not on those things, but we do disagree

(00:50):
slightly on that. Quite an interesting day. A few more
updates coming through, particularly later in the day, aspen Pharmercare
having an update. There was an update as well, of
course from Capi Tech earlier in the day, and it
does seem finey that some of that period of volatility
around metals prices might have eased. I say that knowing
it all go nuts again in a couple of moments.

(01:11):
Still lots of conversations at the mining in Daba in
Cape Town. In one of the conversations coming from the
DTIC Minister Parks Tow essentially saying that South Africa is
looking at reviewing some of its trade policies, some of
its trade agreements with countries it does not do. We
don't want to just export raw minerals. We want to

(01:31):
beneficiate I mean, of course, but there's so many issues
around that. Due to speak to the acting Deputy Director
General of Sectors and the DTIC doctor de Baha Mukobe
about that in just a moment, I think that's going
to be an important conversation. Also Martin Davis, you know
him of course many hats, but he's also involved in
the mining in dewberries. The chare of the Downstream and

(01:52):
Industrial Committee at the mining and Darba talking about beneficiation
and how perhaps instead of looking elsewhere we should look
to markets here for the products that are sold. I
was very interested to read the Amabungane Center for Investigative
Journalism story this morning. It was published in at Daily
Maverick and News twenty four about ESKAM and their power
generation fleet. And you look at the top numbers and

(02:14):
you think to yourself, will load chillings over the what's
it called the energy availability factor? Looks pretty good. They've
done a much deeper dive. They had some numbers. I
must say, well done to ESKIM. They gave them all
of the numbers they wanted and they say, actually forty
percent of Eskam's power stations this is coal now are
available less than half of the time and the target

(02:36):
is eighty percent, an EAF of eighty percent. But the
two new power stations Madupian consider are still only hitting
seventy percent. I thought, maybe they'll be doing a little
better than that now, and we'll also be looking at
pay bonuses and benefits. How they're thinking about that is changing.
Lindiu Seborsial from she's the managing director of Raim Channel

(02:57):
from around ten to seven. A lot of demands now
from workers. If you go for a job interview, almost
immediately you're going to be told you will need to
come into the office three days a week at least,
does seem like things are going in that way? Good
you hear from you as always double onea A three
oh seven two two one four four six O five
six seven and oh seven two seven oh two one

(03:18):
seven oh two. So much going on around water in
Karteng at the moment. Just get a censor right now.
The Mayor of joe Berg, Daara Morrero, the Water Affairs
Minister Pemi Majordina and others are talking. I think the
problem is is that residents have almost given up hope
and when you get to that situation, things really are

(03:39):
in a very bad state. What do you think will
improve the water situation around the country? Oh seven two
seven oh two one seven oh two. Good evening. Twelve
minutes after six The Lally Show.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
With Stephen Kruger's Live on ninety two point seven and
one six FM streaming on the Prime Media Plus.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
NAP and DStv channel eight five six.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Well the DT. I see Minister park Style saying today
his department wants to make sure that investments from other
countries help to industrialize South Africa and that trade partnerships
will be reviewed to stop minerals from being exploited without
some kind of tangible benefit. Doctor de Borjom mccube is
the Acting Deputy Director General of Sectors at the Department

(04:21):
of Trade, Industry and Competition at the BOJO. Good evening
and thanks so much for your time. What kind of
reviewer you looking at?

Speaker 5 (04:30):
Good good evening to you and to your listeners. As
the Minister has indicated, Look, the government, through the Department
of Petrolum and Mineral Resources has tabled the critical mineral strategy.

(04:51):
At the center of that is the beneficiation which you've
been talking about for a number of years now. The
tta I SEE has been given the responsibility to make
sure that there is localization and beneficiation of those minerals
in the country. So we are looking at measures to

(05:16):
support various subsectors of those minerals.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, so would you make it illegal to export those
minerals in a row form?

Speaker 4 (05:30):
Look?

Speaker 5 (05:30):
The economic instruments right which can be used to limit
the exportation of the minerals in the real form. One
is the exportase or the quota, which Colinet has basically

(05:57):
given the dt I SEE to explore the mechanism to
implement those police instruments. So we are reviewing, you know,
the best way to implement those instruments, because there must
be efficiencies and for us to make sure that you know,

(06:21):
we are very competitive in exporting those minerals, so when
you then consider the expertase, you have to look at
the price in relation to your competitors. So it's important
that we review that, but also making sure that there's
downstream and development. So we are working with other government departments,

(06:46):
including the industry. We have received commands from the industry
and other stakeholders on whether to do it or not
to do it. So we are assessing those comments and
at the right time, the department will make pronouncements on

(07:07):
whether those instruments are appropriate or not. But what you
cannot sorry you can come in.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Okay, sorry too, Sorry to interrupt. That don't mean too
but I mean, for example, as I understand it's the
list that I can see from from the government, is
that you would include lithium, cobalt, manganese, platinum group metals
for example. Now we export quite a large amount of
platinum group metals. At the moment, they're not beneficiated here,

(07:34):
they benefit it's been officiated somewhere else. I mean, if
you were to put a tax or try and disrupt
that trade, it would have a huge impact on the
platinum industry, on all sorts of financial activity, economic activity
that's happening at the moment. Look the.

Speaker 5 (07:53):
Some beneficiation happening. We can debate, you know, on the extent,
but if you look at the autels we do for
Catholic converters, we well we we then do beneficiate to
a particular extent the platinum, for for chrome. The challenge

(08:16):
that we are having is the is the price which
the government is dealing with that and that effects the
cost of production, including beneficiation. We are comgnisant of the
fact that we don't have adequate resources of amounts of lythium,

(08:36):
but our neighboring countries Zimbabwe is end out with with lythium,
so is dar We are looking at processing those minerals
in the country, all right, So we are partnering with
will be partnering with other countries so that we we

(08:56):
then process. So for us, it's not only as I've said,
an issue of putting or placing a limitation on the
exports without a broaduct strategy or around beneficiation. So that

(09:16):
is why the review is being undertaken and a proper
economic analysis is then required. Our view is that any
limitation must be supported by downstream development in the country
and we are working on that, okay.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
I mean the other thing to just be aware of
is the General Agreements on Trade and Tariffs, and as
I understand it, under the GAT Agreement World Trade Organization
members we do belong to it can't just stop exports
of certain minerals. So I mean, we would have to
live up to agreements we've signed. All of this has
to fit together at a time when other countries are

(09:53):
trying to do the same thing and price matters. You're
trying to thread a very difficult needle.

Speaker 5 (10:01):
Yes, and again we are the member of the the ABILITY,
all right, we are signatory to the agreements in there.
But also if you look at what other countries are doing,
they've put in security national security consideration as there isn't

(10:24):
why they're limiting the export of certain minerals. So China
is doing it as and critical minerals we are seeing
and the US just announced last week that it will
be stopped highly the critical minerals and there is funding

(10:46):
allocated for that. We are also doing it in other factors.
So if you look at the still industry, for instance,
there is an attacks and expert tax on scrap and
we are providing that script. But the developmental price to
the minimals which are processing or producing electricity using scripts,

(11:11):
and that is downstream development and we are seeing the
benefits in the country. So they're thinking, is it's like that?
So for for for us is not applying the text
and issolution from that development process.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
I mean, I worry that we're entering an era not
just of tariff nationalism, of trade nationalism, but resource nationalism
as well. And obviously your job is to look after
South Africa's interests and I expect you to look after
my interests. But we, I think, can be legitimately critical
of nations that say we're not going to sell things

(11:53):
to you because we want to keep them, which is
really troum trade policy in a way. And suddenly we're
just as bad as the next die.

Speaker 5 (12:02):
So we all agree that the strategy or the practice
of the pit to part has not really benefited South
African other resource rich countries in the main partrigularly on
the African continent. So we are end out with the

(12:25):
chrome al right, we export chrome. That chrome is used
to manufacture standards still for instance in China. All right,
what we are saying is that that is not sustainable
for us. How do we make sure that we are
also capable of manufacturing stainards still in the country.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (12:49):
And we all agree that I spot can be an
important instrument, but it's not sufficient. So you didn't need
other economic instruments to support the development of stainless still
industry in the country. And we also it's important that

(13:11):
we developed that sete of the market. Then who can
export it to to other African countries and we can
all of us benefits from that. But as we currently
doing it's it's we are not driving value. As you know,
I always say, you know your your calls, so it's

(13:32):
more expensive like as compared to your rockabish, you know,
because there is value addition. So the thing thinking in
in in minerals that we are not capturing value where
they is needed and value is in the downstream is
in the process of of of minerals. And it makes

(13:57):
economical and logic put us to capture that.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
Yeah, doctor Dobaham mccobet, thank you very much. Indeed, Acting
Deputy Director General of Sectors at the DTI. See well
staying with that conversation twenty two minutes after six on
the Money show at the Mining in Darba today, more
conversations about exactly the same thing, beneficiation and a suggestion
in fact, we should be looking to our own markets
for the final product rather than beneficiating something to sell elsewhere.

(14:25):
Doctor Martin Davis is the chair of the Downstream and
Industrial Committee at the ENDARBA Martin good even good to
talk to you again. What are you suggesting in terms
of how we could change the way we approach beneficiation.

Speaker 6 (14:39):
Yes, Stephn, Sorry, thanks for the conversation. I'm always good
to chat to you. Look, I think the starting point
here is is the notion of beneficiation must be built
on sound economics. We're not living in the Soviet Union
and clearly that didn't end well. What we need to
be thinking about here is sort of IMMAs paint the macro.

(14:59):
Briefly is we're living in the age of mechantilism.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
And you allude to that.

Speaker 6 (15:04):
Think China the last you know twenty thirty odd years,
are more recently the US in some form or other.
The challenge really is, then the question is saying, we're
seeing states that are developmentally aspirational want to reindustrialize or
rescue industry or from very nascent states industrializer economies. And

(15:28):
therefore you have governments, and the conversation just now reflected
about governments that seem to think they need to be
more interventionist, more controlling, and more arguably employing a China
model that is not understood and certainly often misapplied, whereby
the state must control and own. I think that's entirely incorrect.
We often, I was saying earlier today. In fact, the

(15:49):
mind of it, you know, government has beyond the provision
of efficient public goods and services. You know, I think power, logistics, infrastructure, security,
et cetera, rule of law, those that the central essential
cocktail to begin with upon which business, economics and industry
can thrive. Those are the share basics, pure basics. But

(16:10):
beyond that, I think we need to start to think about,
you know, not even not even sector growth is how
countries create, as we say, ecosystems around which are really
human capital focused and based on liberal economic policy that
allow businesses to thrive rather than sort of force businesses
or sectors to comply that's not a sustainable winning strategy.

(16:34):
I'm afraid, and I think that, you know, a very
important point is to stress I think sustainable societies economic
development is underpinned by healthy, robust middle class. Middle classes
in South Africa and other economies globally.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Right now in certain regions.

Speaker 6 (16:50):
Are battling with high levels of inflation really to be speaking,
which erodes well from the bottom, and taxation, which takes
well from the top.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
We're seeing a narrowing of a middle class.

Speaker 6 (16:59):
And if that's the case, government should be doing all
it can to reduce inflation and reduce in taxation and
allowing middle class to thrive through growth. It's not done
by ownership intervention and increase taxes, particular on exports of
what is effectively one's only real, you know, really valuable export,
and that is commodities taxing. It is I'm afraid cutting

(17:21):
off not just your own shooting yourself in the foot,
but cutting off your entire leg.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
I mean, there needs needs to be another approach in
so many different ways, is there really? I mean, you know,
the heading of the session you had today was around
sort of beneficiation for South Africa's market. The reason we
want to beneficiate and sell or sell to other countries.
Is that market is bigger.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
Yeah, I mean it's you kind of have a winning
sort of developmental strategy focus on on domestic market. I mean,
if that's the case, then countries like staff Career, China,
Wooden or not even South Korea, Singapore, et cetera, Tiwa
would never have succeeded. Their market was always global by
free trade, highly efficient government, entrepreneurship and capital creation. And

(18:05):
that is that's the fundamentals one needs to understand the
challenges today's world. You know, we have what I call
sort of elusive trinity, is that we want to industrialize,
but it's very difficult to you know, the combination of industrialization, employment,
and productivity.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
You can't have all three. You can have two of
the three, but not all three.

Speaker 6 (18:23):
And I'm afraid in the light of industrialization, it's no
longer an employment creation strategy that capital is not really
interested in labor. I'm afraid capital is interested in tech
and manufacturing these days is very very high tech.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
So that's where we need to start from. But I
go back to say that, you know.

Speaker 5 (18:42):
This sort of.

Speaker 6 (18:45):
Charles Dickens's view of the world of of of of
factories and high employment and localization, import substitution.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
That's not an industrial strategy.

Speaker 6 (18:55):
Yes, governments are inclining toward this, but I'm afraid they're wrong.
We need to to to you know, again, you have
to have that very efficient inputs into your manufacturing. But ultimately,
I think, and you know, be power, et cetera. But
that's the obvious. But I think really it's about a
human capital play. Industrialization, manufacturing value add nice word beneficiation

(19:18):
is a human capital play. How can you bring generate
local international talent together in clusters for competitiveness? And Stephen,
I must say, and you know my views on this,
I think I'm deeply skeptical to say, Well, the question
is do natural resources confer a comparative advantage?

Speaker 1 (19:35):
I don't think they do.

Speaker 6 (19:36):
Or do they merely just blind society's economies governments from
more opportunities that may lie elsewhere.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
I think that's the key question, Doctor Martin Davis, thanks
so much. Share the Downstream and Industrial Committee investing in
mining in Darbor twenty eight after six the Money Show
the Market Christian's portfolio manager at ninety one Christ good Evening.
A few updates today, including from Capitech and Surprise Price,
their earnings are up.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Good you being Stephen.

Speaker 7 (20:03):
A pretty robust trading update out of Capitec today, guiding
for headline earnings growth between twenty and twenty five percent,
which is another very credible number in the current environment.
And if I know Capitech based on recent history, it's
going to be closer to twenty five percent than it
is to the twenty percent mark. Remember, they've released the

(20:23):
stripping update about a month before the end of their
financial years, so they must be pretty confident that they're
going to get to the numbers. And that's despite the
fact that they continue to adopt a strategy of investing
quite aggressively in reducing pricing in areas of the market
where they think there are opportunities for them to get

(20:44):
in there and do so. We've seen that over the
last year they've been pretty tight in terms of retail fees.
They've got a very simple retail fee structure. You're not
seeing fees climbing across the bank and you know, they
have certainly set the catamount the pigeons in the business
banking space where they've gone in with some fairly aggressive

(21:05):
price cuts, both in terms of hardware point of sale,
but also some of the acquiring fees that the banks
charge at point of sale, and they're using that to
further their longer term growth prospect by gaining market share
in those areas and continue to be very successful in
doing so.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Changes at ABSA. The new head of Personal and Private
Banking actually is from the Kenyan unied Kenyan unit impairsp
to Toya Lobokoyet. I must say I didn't see that coming.
Very interesting.

Speaker 7 (21:34):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the market's been on ten
toooks waiting for some you know, appointments, new appointments.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
From Kenny Wiitler.

Speaker 7 (21:42):
Outside of the corporate and investment banking space, we've seen
a number of higher profile appointments within the CIB unit,
the personal and private banking and indeed the business banking
heads or you know, new executives to lead up those
divisions we've been waiting for. Today, as you say, we've
seen the former MD of Impassa Africa being appointed to

(22:04):
head up the Personal Private Banking division, and I suspect
before too long we will see a new appointment in
the business banking space as well. So Kenny continues to
build an executive bench to support him in his quest
to turn around as financial performance. We've also seen today
some announcements of further restructuring within the Africa region's part

(22:30):
of ABSA, setting up regional heads to our guests support
the in country executives and to make sure that I
guess the linkages between the businesses in South Africa and
the balance sheet in South Africa and the opportunity across.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
The rest of the continent are maximized.

Speaker 7 (22:48):
And I must say the corporate structure by the day
of a looks more and more like Standard Bank, and
I don't think that's any great coincidence. And then finally
we also saw the appointment of Dember Records who will
be joining as one of the dirisional heads within the
corporate investment banking business so called transactional Banking unit, which
you and I would probably call the corporate banking unit.

(23:10):
You know, ever since Tember resigned recently from the land Bank,
they've been question marks as to where he's going. So
now I guess we know where he's going. He's following
most executive turnover in the market and ending up adapts.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
And very quickly quite strong jobs numbers in the US.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Yeah, we've seen strong jobs numbers in the US.

Speaker 7 (23:30):
Not ordinarily you know, something like a strong macro data
point would be good for markets. A little bit more
ambiguous in the US market, trying to digest whether this
is in the good news or bad news. You know,
a strong job's number after we've seen some fairly weak
jobs numbers and macro indicators in the last month or so,
employment falling, And I guess sometimes that viewed does not

(23:53):
such a good thing for markets, because slightly stronger macros
means lower likelihood of radcuts, and lower likelihood of redcuts
stably means low evaluations for highly valued equities. So the
US market sort of in and out of the black
at the moment, trying to work out whether this is
indeed good news or.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Bad Often so hard to know. Chris Stewart from ninety one,
thanks so much. Just after six thirty The Money Show
with Stephen on seven oh two, seven oh two quota
now to seven the time. Good to hear from you,
of course, and your views and what would resolve some
of the water problems with seeing around the country, I know,
seven to seven oh two one seven oh two. A

(24:31):
new report out today from the Amabungani Center for Investigative Journalism,
suggesting our power system might be a little bit more
well fragile than I had thought. I mean, the report
says forty percent of Eskam's power station spent half of
last year not actually producing power. Chrisy Ellend is the
managing director at EE Business Intelligence, Chris Good evening, we

(24:52):
haven't had load shedding for a long time. Underneath that, though,
if you look at the numbers, I mean, are our
coal fired powers stations still not doing very well?

Speaker 8 (25:03):
Yeah, Look, there's a lot of them that are actually
not in service at the moment because.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Demand for electricity is pretty low.

Speaker 8 (25:13):
And ESCIM has placed a number of generating units at
various power stations into what is known as cold reserve.
That it means they are switched off, but they are
technically available if called upon starts and it will take
some hours to restart them, of course, but technically they
consider it available, but they actually not actually generating at all.

(25:38):
They're off and there's quite a significant amount of that.
And in addition, as this Bengani article points out that
you know, if you look at the energy availability factor
for twenty twenty five as an average for the whole year.
You know, ESCAM claims about sixty two percent availability factor

(25:58):
average for the year, but that is but if you
take out the non coal fired power plants and just
look at the coal fired power plants, then the availability
factor drops to fifty eight percent for those coal fired units,
which is still a long way from where it should be.
But I must say that in the last weeks of

(26:20):
twenty twenty five, last month, in the last weeks of
twenty five, it was a very dramatic improvement in the
energy availability factor, which was out of line with the
rest of the year, very significantly out of line. And
there's been a lot of speculation as to, you know,
why this should be, and I personally put it down

(26:41):
to the fact of the high level of.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Cold reserve units in cold reserve.

Speaker 8 (26:49):
Because you've got to understand, when a unit in cold reserve,
it's not on, it is considered to be available. But
if it was called upon to switch on and I
actually operate it may find that there's a boiler tube leak,
it might have to switch off. So if you're actually
operating them, they're not being stress tested as it were.
They're sitting there idle and they don't really know, you know,

(27:12):
as to it's really it's true level of availability because
it's sitting there idle and when you have these very
high levels of surplus generation capacity in old reserve, it
really makes the energy availability factors almost meaningless. And we've
seen this.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Also in the past.

Speaker 8 (27:31):
If you look at the history of South Africa, at
times when we had significant surplus of electricity, the availability
factor it tended to be much higher than what we've
come to experience in the last couple of years. And
that's also because when you have all the surplus, you
can do the maintenance properly because it's sitting there, it's
not actually needed. Now you can you can do all

(27:52):
the necessary maintenance and you can, and then you find
the availability factor looks high, but they're not actually being
stress tested, so you don't really a tie or not.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
I mean according to the information and sort of well
done to eskipool Pol were actually giving it to them Bengani.
But the target is an energy availability factor of eighty percent.
Casillia and Madoupi are both at seventy percent and they're
both brand new should they be shouldn't they be at
eighty percent? At least those two.

Speaker 8 (28:21):
You know, if you look at the Integrated Resource Plan
for electricity, when they're planning and they were looking at
new power plants, they always quote figures, you know, for
a new coal five POWERstation availability of ninety percent, but
they never do operate at that kind of level. And
the same with nuclear, by the way, if you look,
you know, when they look at a nuclear power plant

(28:42):
in the planning phase, you know, they always talk about
an availability of ninety percent, but the reality is that
they perform at much lower availability factors. So sometimes it's
the planners who want to get these technologies in and
quote these very high figures because it makes them look
much more economical. When you run a power plant and
a ninety percent load factor is producing much more electricity

(29:05):
because it's available ninety percent of the time, and that
brings the price of electricity down because you know, you
divide the capital costs or the cost the number of
units produce general electric amount of electricity produced divided by
the amount of investment, and suddenly it looks like you're
because you're generating a lot more units. It looks like
the price of electricity from these power stations is cheaper.

(29:27):
When you run them at a low availability factor or
a load load factor, the price of electricity generated by
that goes up significantly. So sometimes I think games get
played in the planning process by people pushing a particular
technology making it look good, but the reality is not
nearly as good as it looks.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, I mean the fact that we have all of
the surplus production capability and we don't have smelters running
at the moment, and there's a bit of talk that
you know, if we can get those back up and
running them, the electricity would go to running smelters, and
I understand that you cannot. I understand how that would
work from an electricity generation point of view, but would

(30:09):
it really be economical because the smelters do use a
huge amount of electricity. Look, it would be sort of
base load providing someone who needs it in a very
intense way. So all of that would work, but it
would still I presume, be quite expensive.

Speaker 8 (30:24):
You know, the smelters have basically told government and Eskom
that in order to be competitive they need a price
of sixty two cents of killer what hour, which is
about a seventy five percent discount of the price of
electricity that they're currently getting. I don't know how that's
going to be possible, you know how they talk about it,

(30:45):
different business models that they investigating. But for scum to
supply electricity at sixty two cents of killer what hour?
Somebody has got to be putting the bill for the subsidy,
and it's it's not a small substance, is a big subsidy.
So the question really is who pays and how is
this actually funded out. They talk about using you know,

(31:07):
the glen Core's got coal they could supply at cost, Well,
that's not going to bring down the price from two
ended killer? What our sixty two cents of killer?

Speaker 5 (31:19):
What our?

Speaker 7 (31:19):
I mean?

Speaker 8 (31:20):
The profits are not that big on the supply of coal.
I don't think glen cause margins on coal, you know,
or such that they can supply coal at cost to
ESCIM and get electricity at sixty two cents of killar
what our I don't see it. But we have to
keep an open mind there on negotiations taking place and
discussions try and figure this all out. We'll have to

(31:43):
see where anything comes of it by the end of March,
because that's the deadline that they've set themselves for this
engagement process with the smelters to see what can Of course,
there's also discard coal. In other words, not normal coal
that you would normally supply to the mark, but discard coal.
It of no use to anybody. I mean maybe it's

(32:06):
of use to ask them. Yeah, but again you know
the quality of the discard coal is it doesn't make
it necessarily suitable for an ex compower station.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Christ And thanks so much, Managing director at EE Business Intelligence,
really appreciate it.

Speaker 9 (32:22):
The Money Show, Steve Encroaches, is brought to you by
Absolve Corporate and Investment Banking balancing economic growth with ecosystems.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
That's how they've invested.

Speaker 4 (32:32):
In your story.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
Sex Minister seven. The time will more evidence. Today employers
are demanding that new employees new workers spend more time
in the office. Also, the idea of a sign on
bonus seems to be falling out of favor. It all
comes from the REM Channel Employee Benefits Guide. The managing
director at RAM channel is lindiwe Sebash or good evening,
thanks for your time. You've found over two thirds of

(32:56):
bosses want new workers in the office three days a week.
It makes sense to me. I'm kind of a fan
of in the office. I know that makes me unpopular sometimes,
but is that quite a big change from a couple
of years ago.

Speaker 10 (33:09):
It is a big change, and thank you very much
opportunity to Steven. It is definitely a big In twenty
twenty three, forty point per center of hybrid organizations describing
in office days and that's not grown to sixty seven
point four to those organizations now require.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Three days in office.

Speaker 10 (33:27):
So this whole environment has now become a bit more prescriptive.
And obviously it's about collaborative. It's about rebuilding that culture
that has been lost when people were working behind screen,
and it's really trying to focus that on collaborative performance.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah, I mean it makes it makes sense to me.
I always just think of young people who start in
a company and how you're going to know anything about
it if you're not working with other people. The idea
of a sign on bonus, and I mean long term,
I mean, I don't know if a sign on bonus
works seems to be falling out of fame.

Speaker 10 (34:01):
It is definitely out of flavor. Those were perks that
were used to bring people on board, so it was
more attraction bonus way Since you were hiring somebody that
was for seeing certain incentives from their previous employer that
they would have obviously worked for performance condition aligned to that,

(34:22):
you would want to bring that person over. So now
you're seeing is a decline. It's actually quite a big decline.
Fifty two point one that was in twenty twenty three,
and it's not twenty eight point three percent of the
surveyed employ provide.

Speaker 5 (34:36):
Sign on bonuses.

Speaker 10 (34:37):
What this is there is now less emphasis on past performance,
much emphasis on future sustainable performance. So we are not
buying or we are seeing employers not buying what you
are promising to do, but rather incentivizing the performance that
will create value into the future.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
I mean, there's so many things to sort of look at.
But I mean, companies talk about wellness all the time,
and they say they want to promote it, and I'm
sure they make all sorts of promises we'll look after
you in this way and that way. But in the
same breath, companies need to extract full value from employers.
I mean, are they changes to the kind of wellness
issue that companies provide. I mean things like thirteenth checks

(35:20):
or soft loans, things like that.

Speaker 5 (35:21):
In particular, absolutely.

Speaker 10 (35:23):
So the interesting insights from the survey Stiven is that
wellbeing has become the top benefit priority. So if you
look at the overall package, you obviously have the cash side,
and then you have the benefit side, and then you
have the incentive side. So on the benefit side, we
are seeing wellbeing becoming a top priority and it's really
largely to respond to what is going to create resilience

(35:47):
that what is going to help people deal with financial pressures.
So the different aspects of well being, being, financial wellbeing, being,
a physical wellbeing all are coming into place because everyone
is trying to create resililliant workforces that can manage all
these challenges that they are seeing. But what we noted
is there was an intent a decline in direct financial

(36:12):
assistance when we talk to the financial aspect of wellbeing.
What is now coming through is a growth of structured
financial resilience schools such as the end wage access which
really has been adopted by twenty percent of the surveyed organizations.
What this does is it allows employees to access earned
wages as opposed to encouraging them to go and get

(36:35):
expensive loans who just assist with in man expenses.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
I mean I suppose this is also a reflection of
the perceived sort of power powerplay, right, and how much
do you want to work? How valuable is the worker
to you as a company, And as always, it depends
on the sort of skills and relative scarcity in all
of those things. Can you see in your surveys over

(37:02):
the years any change in whether sometimes it's workers to
seem to hold the power, sometimes it's the companies who
seem to hold the power.

Speaker 10 (37:12):
It depends even I mean, we know that the skills
supply and demand, especially for critical skills, is always difficult
to manage. So what we are seeing from a value
proposition that employers are providing is they still want to
be competitive, but they're very deliberate about where they are
spending the money. On the other side, we are seeing
employees being very clear about what would attract them, what

(37:35):
would make them work harder, what would motivate them, what's
valuable to them. And especially because there's five generations in
the workforce now, so you've got to have a diverse
value proposition that talks to the needs of all those
different generations. So we're seeing that interplay and the balance
depending on obviously what's critical for employers to succeed and
be sustainable for that matter.

Speaker 5 (37:56):
From a performance perspective, Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Land Saber Show is the managing director of rem A Channel.
Don't forget from seven thirty Temper Bervoma your special extra
special shape Shifter on The Money Show just on seven o'clock.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
And now The Money Show with Stephen credits on seven
oh two. Let's walk little.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
The Money Show with Stephen Crutis is brought to you
by ABS of Corporate and Investment banking, balancing economic growth
with ecosystems. That's how they're invested in your story. Eight
minutes after seven the time. How many times have you
heard the phrase be authentic, be the real you? And
I have to say the last few times I've heard it,
I've kind of gone really, I mean agay and in

(38:42):
business unusual. We'll sort of unpack. Well, maybe that's not
such a good idea. We'll talk about that with Superior
Moyl in just a moment, Consumer Ninja Wendy Nola tonight
looking at romance scams actually and how big a problem
that can be. So quite a lot to come over
the next half for now. Good to hear from you
as well on seven two, seven oh two one seven

(39:03):
oh two.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
The Money Show with Stephen crudis live on ninety two
point seven and one six FM, streaming on the Prime
Media Plus NAP.

Speaker 11 (39:12):
And DStv channel eight five six.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Well, as things have panned out, it does appear that
we won't have a Money Show tomorrow because what's that
thing called again? Oh yes, the State of the Nation Address.
The President will be speaking and you'll hear live coverage
of that as well as I understand that Mandy weenikam
at Manitela will be part of our team in Parliament.
You'll hear all of that, the build up to it,
and of course all of the reaction to the State

(39:36):
of the Nation Address as well tomorrow from around this
time seven o'clock Tomorrow's when the speech begins, but the
build up will begin long before that. I did just
want to say though, that if I were the president,
and if O were president sawrom A Pausa right now,
I think it will be absolutely fatal not to make
some kind of comment about water becoming more and more

(39:58):
of a political issue, partly because because it's been such
a big problem for so long. Also because even though
there have been many rural areas that have had problems
with water for a very long time. Now to the
urban areas. But take it from me, political change starts
in urban areas. Okay, it's very rare to have political

(40:18):
change or anything starting in rural areas. It can happen
there one or two incidents I can think of, but
generally speaking, it starts in the cities. And so when
a problem like this comes to the city, it should
never happen in rural areas. But when it comes to
the city, there's more political fight, more political power to it.
Add to that, Helen Zillah, who you would have heard

(40:38):
on the Midday Report today, the DA's mayoral candidate for Joeberg,
published I mean, and I hate to say this about
a political political photograph, there's kind of a wonderful image
because it's her sitting with her feet in a bore
hole full of water with a sun umbrella, basically, you know,
enjoying the water in a bottle. I mean, it's just

(40:58):
the most astonishing image which brings together so many of
Joe Berg's problems in kind of one going And I say,
Joe Berger, I suppose I'm really speaking for all of
hunting and many other places, And the political power of
this is huge. So if I were the president, I
wouldn't just make announcements. I would do something about that
because I think if you don't, you're probably going to
feel some political heat as a result your thoughts. Oh

(41:20):
seven two seven two one seven o two.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Show business unusual.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Have you ever been told just be yourself? I mean
maybe when you sort of go on your first date
with your first ever date, you're told to be yourself.
You're told to be yourself in teams, in companies, in
the office. Is it such a good idea? Really? Superior
Moyl is an organizational behavior specialist Superia. I mean, sometimes
one can be too honest. Can one be.

Speaker 12 (41:47):
Yourself too much? Absolutely, Stephen. I was just thinking about
the first date.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Idea that you've just talken about.

Speaker 12 (41:55):
Don't hunt be yourself completely on your first daed, And
I think it's such a really nice analogy for me,
because I think authenticity can be a very very good thing.
But I think that's like anything else, we can take
it too far, or we can misunderstand it, and it
becomes very counterproductive. So for I was in an organizational
behavior conference recently and we're discussing a book by I

(42:19):
called doctor Thomas Tomorrow. The book is called it Don't
be yourself while Authenticity is Overrated, And I think it
challenged me, Stephen, to be honest with you, because what
if the version of you that's showing up every day
is reactive or maybe defensive or emotionally underdeveloped. Is that
the version you want to bring on that first dage?

(42:40):
Is that the version you want to bring on at work?

Speaker 3 (42:44):
I think not. Yeah, I mean you've you kind of
need to manage yourself. I mean to put this in
another way, supew Here, I am a different person to
my wife than I am to the listener of this
radio show, to the person that I am with, the
people I work with who produce the radio show. I'm
still Steven, but I'm three different people to all of

(43:04):
those all of those groups exactly.

Speaker 8 (43:08):
I think that's the main thing.

Speaker 12 (43:09):
So when people say be your authentic self, which version.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Of Steven are they looking for?

Speaker 12 (43:13):
Because it definitely cannot be the same as the same version.
So if you're going to bring the brutally honest version
of you at work, that's probably not going to help us.
Because human beings generally are quite complex. So understanding context
and understanding where you are is very very good. So
for example, if you are to open radio show luck

(43:36):
you're off tomorrow, Let's say another day and say I
had a completely terrible day. I'm not feeling like heaving radio.
That's probably not a good idea at work. So the
idea understanding of how complex we are and how how
many cells do we have as human beings helps us
because you're not being authentic inauthentic, You're just being the authentic.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Work version of you.

Speaker 12 (43:58):
Because that's what is a quiet The book.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
You're talking, you're referring to her talks about authenticity traps
and four main ones. I mean, what are the traps?

Speaker 12 (44:09):
Yeah, just briefly, Stephen. The first one is the whole
transparency trip, the idea that we should always be brutally honest.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
I think that's that's not true.

Speaker 12 (44:17):
I speak at conferences and the last thing you want
is the speaker going on stage and saying I'm demotivated today.
It's like, that's not what we're there for. So unfiltered
honesty without context is just reckless. That's the first one.
It's called the transparency trip. I think the second one
is called the impulsive trip. The idea that we should

(44:38):
always follow your heart, and many people assume mistakenly that
what you really feel, your true things, are always right.
But that's not true, because we can lead to poor
decision and failure to adapt professionally. The third one is
stop worrying about what others think. This is a terrible one,

(44:59):
and I think the context of the world politics that
you are in, Stephen Whey, people don't seem to care
about another view. This is this is a trip that
is not good. You have to worry about what other
people think. That's it's a very nassistic thing to say,
stop worrying about about what other people think of you.

(45:19):
It's very important to worry because leadership requires transition, adaptation.
The idea that you should never compromise or at least
be someone else in a different context is wrong. And
the last one is bring your whole self to work.
It is impossible to bring my whole self to work.

(45:39):
That entire self can include being grumpy, anxious, but that's
not going to help us at work. So the professional
version of ourselves, as you've always said, is a more
adaptable and required at that time.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
Can authenticity be sort of misunderstood.

Speaker 12 (45:58):
Yeah, it is of misunderstood. Its divine because I mean,
I think we've all seen someone who and I've seen
people who go to work and they say, I'm just
being myself. I'm blunt, I tell it like it is,
I'm being real. But what if you've been real? Erode
psychological safety, which is a bedrock of team effectiveness. So

(46:21):
the fact that you really means I can't ask a question.
The fact that you're real means I can't admit a
mistake because I am not safe at that moment. And
by the way, as we've always argued, if I can't
admit a mistakes, that means I'm hiding it, and that's
not good for business. So it's not just about being collegial.
That's actually not good for business. You need an environment

(46:42):
where everyone to a different to a different extent, can
be able to show us a different version of themselves.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
When you're a leader, you do need to be real.
You can't lie over time. I mean sometimes very good
leaders have known have have not lie, But I found
ways to show a leadership version of themselves when you
kind of know later actually they didn't feel like it,
but they managed it anyway, how do you be real
with being effective at the same time.

Speaker 12 (47:13):
That's so true, Steven, and I think for me what
you've said about understanding that they're a different version of
a person is very important because we don't we want
you to be real. We just don't want you to
have your unfilled that self. We want your intentional selves.
We want a leader who knows how they are wired.

(47:33):
But they understand that I can adapt. The idea that
that's just who I am is not going to work.
You can acknowledge your inclinations. You can acknowledge who you are,
but work on them. For example, I understand that when
I'm in a meeting, I need to dial up certain
things and dial down certain things. So, for example, if

(47:53):
you're a leader and you want other people to speak,
you might have to dial down the domineering. You might
have to listen to other people's fests. Otherwise you're going
to lose as in a session to their way. It's
clear some people are a little bit more introveted. And
if you lose out on that simply because you just
bring your unfilled itself now while listening to you, you're

(48:15):
changing the climate of the meeting. And all we can
do is just to nod and watch you because it's
your show.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
Yeah, so interesting, Supiram Oil being authentic, best version of
his work, authentic self superior. Thank you Organizational Behavior Specialists.
Eighteen minutes after seven The Money Show Consumer Niga, Well,
it's Valentine's say on Saturday, I hope you hadn't forgotten.
And among all of the other things that happen, and

(48:42):
the cards and the chocolates and this and that, they're
also I'm afraid to say, quite a lot of scammers.
Scammers often look for people who feel a bit lonely.
You don't always know if you're feeling a bit lonely.
They look for someone who feels a bit vulnerable and
they try and kind of get involved. There the an
African fraull prevention. So it was actually warning about Wendy.

(49:03):
Notice your consumer Ninja, Wendy a good evening. Who gets
targeted in these scams? I mean, is it? I mean
there's a sort of stereotype. Is it mostly women? Do
we even know?

Speaker 11 (49:12):
Hi, Stephen, I don't have stats on that, but it's
not particularly a scam that women are targeted for men
as well. In fact, I was very interested to see
in a story that News twenty four broke a couple
of weeks ago, not even about the twenty seven year
old Quislin Atal man who was lured by effect job

(49:34):
ad for a call center position in Thailand. When he
got there, all tickets paid, etc. He was trafficked to
a compound in mind Mar where he was forced to
pose as a woman and target lonely older men in
Europe and the US on dating sites and social media platforms,
and then of course scan them out of money. So
I mean that's a whole operation, a huge operation set

(49:54):
up just to target men in particular, or maybe he
was just part of the target men. T and the
others were targeting women. But you are here to pose
as a woman.

Speaker 8 (50:04):
And the thing is that.

Speaker 11 (50:06):
The technology now and the fact that so many people
are on social media and the technology such as AI
is really playing into the heads and these forces, making
it easier for them to pretend to be who they are.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
Yeah, I mean it also means that someone you can
find out a lot of information about someone online that
the AI bott will do that for you. You can
also pretend to be about one hundred different people at once,
targeting one hundred different people kind of over the course
of an hour.

Speaker 11 (50:30):
Yeah, exactly, And I think that is what's happening. It
must be quite a thing for them, because they play
a long game, right, So they don't you know, befriends
someone on a dating set or some social media app
immediately and then start asking for money, which is the
end game. So they play quite a long game, and
they you know, they've they've really checked out what the

(50:51):
person's about from their posts and from the interaction, and
so they position themselves. They create a profile of someone
who is the perfect match. And of course it's syrupy
language and everything's deare and I love your smile, and
they never critical, as people in real life tend to
be after the first few days. And so it goes,
and so it goes for a few months. Really, I mean,

(51:13):
I've heard of some that start with the money requests sooner,
but that's normally a guess. So they say stringly along
these poor people men or women for several months and
several at a time before they have an emergency, a
temporary emergency where they need the money. And there it continues.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Yeah, it's always that, the temporary emergency. And I mean,
this is, this is a classic example of a business
model that has time and capital, and they deploy the capital,
they invest the time, and this is the result. They
wouldn't do it if they didn't make money.

Speaker 11 (51:44):
Exactly, And it's it's it's happening on a larger and
larger scale as far as I can tell. And and
just so clever Stephen, they tell their victims not to
tell their children, saying that they'll be generous or controlling
and won't understand. And so they create this you and
me against the world story, And in fact, many from

(52:05):
Sculptick of the Safis calls it psychological warfare. And the
only defense, which is why we're having this discussion, is
creating awareness. So what I really want to say is
if someone listening other themselves, if you have a relative
who's lonely and on social media or may already be
on a dating site that you might not know, it's
really important to have this conversation with them so they

(52:25):
are pre armed and don't get sucked in, because once
they are sucked in, I mean they imagine they I
mean they believe totally that they are in a proper
relationship with this scammer. So it's almost impossible to convince
them otherwise. And my conclusion iving spoken to many victims
and their family members, their children usually is that once

(52:47):
they believe themselves to be in this fulfilling relationship, they'd
rather lose the money than the relationship, even to pretend one.
So it's a deeply psychological scam and really horrible.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
It's a real human vulnerability. So I mean, what do
the families do. I mean, families must get quite desperate.
They're watching their you know, their relatives money disappearing, their inheritance.

Speaker 11 (53:08):
Yeah, I mean, they do get quite desperate. They involve
I've often often get emails from people saying could you
speak to my mom or could you speak to my
aunt or whatever, and they're just not open to it,
to listening. So that's why I said that the best
we can do is trying to spread. Whereas when there's
talk about these things that people you know, once and
once they realize they read flags, they could perhaps you know,

(53:31):
not get sucked. And when it's before, it's too late.
And I mean the family members. Doctor Phil you know
his show Us, he focuses on this a lot, and
he gets the children and the parent in and there
you see the psychological trap where the mother, the woman
is just refusing point black, to let go of it,
to let go of the fantasy. And and what they

(53:53):
are letting go of their money As you say, they've
they've watched the house, they've they lose everything, They lose everything.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
What are the signs? I mean, how do you spot
these scammers?

Speaker 11 (54:03):
Okay, so lots of red flags. They avoid in person
meetings because now I used to say, switch to a
video and you know if they won't think, you know,
to scam. But now with aar they can take their
fake profile persona and get them to talk.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Wow.

Speaker 11 (54:20):
You know, so it can be a man pretending to
be a woman easily.

Speaker 7 (54:23):
So that's not it.

Speaker 11 (54:24):
That's not a thing anymore. But definitely they will avoid
it in person meeting. They take an unusual interest in
personal details, so your birthday, your anniversaries, children's names, pets, names,
and other sensitive information because not only to establish a rapport,
but they can use the especially older people will use
that information as they passwords, so then they can scan
them in other ways, get into their bank accounts and things.

(54:45):
Requests for money is a big one, but of course
by the time that happens the person believes themselves to
be in a real relationship. This is their person. They
love this person, and so you're going to give somebody
you love some money if they ask for it. It's
a temporary emergency. So so yeah, that one is often
comes too late for the person to be you know,
realize that this is a red flag.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
How do you make sure that this doesn't happen to
you or someone in your family? I mean there must
be I suppose there must be some ways that you
can protect yourself. And obviously you need to start by
telling people that this could happen.

Speaker 11 (55:20):
Yeah, I'm telling them people around you, the older people, well,
anyone who's lonely and vulnerable and might be looking for
love online. Limit what you share online so you give
insights of your life and it gives scammers information about
what can be used against you to scam you. And
also maybe names and letters or whatever that could be
your pins and passwords. Be skeptical. We, especially women, are

(55:44):
socialized to be nice and accommodating, but distrust everything. Don't
share information personal information of course, don't transform money, transfer money.
And if you've been caught, and this is important, to
report it to the dating site or the platform, and
then to YEMA, which is essay fps's fraud reporting function EMA.
I'm speaking about it a lot. Y I m A,

(56:06):
which means stop, and they give advice, and you know
you report yours, you give them more information to help others.
The modus operanding that you were subjected to names, use
et cetera, et cetera. And then I just finally I
saw on a social media post someone who was court said,
these are the big taels. They say they are widowed

(56:27):
in the military, stationed overseas, or doctors working in the
World Health Organization, all very noble things. And of course
windows are much better than divorced. They use the word
dar a lot the forces. I've noticed that they open
every sentence with it. They like your smile, so always
check their cell and true caller first, reverse image the
images they send you pretending it's them, do several, use

(56:49):
several search engines, and don't share your own soul number
until you've done all the checks.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Wen, do you know that protecting your money, your wallet
and your heart, thank you very much. Indeed, you're consumer Ninja.
On The Money Show, The Lonely Show with.

Speaker 4 (57:03):
Stephen Krudis Lion on ninety two point seven and one
six FM was streaming on the Prime Media Plus.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
NAP and DStv channel eight five six twenty two minutes
now to eight o'clock. Well, you would have heard earlier.
I was quite excited about this. That temperable woman, the
test cricket captain and someone who I hold in very
high regard, was going to speak to us and to
be your shape shift of this evening. And unfortunately I
have to tell you that very late. We've had a

(57:33):
very big apology, I must just say, but unfortunately that
conversation is not going to happen this evening. From what
I can see, it's unavoidable, I'm afraid. So do apologize.
Two things really. One, we've had plenty of apologies from them.
And I apologize to you because I was looking forward
to presenting temperable Woman to you, and I'm sure you

(57:54):
were looking forward to hearing him. So unfortunately that's not
going to happen tonight. I'm sorry about that. The joy, though,
of doing a shape Shifter interview once a week, is
that it gives us so much choice of so many
great guests to go back to and listen to again,
here's one of our favorites.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
The Money Show shape Shifters.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
Well, there's some companies that really do touch you in
many different ways without you necessarily knowing it. One of them,
I would argue is Trance Union Africa. I suppose the
best way to describe it might be a credit bureau
as many other things as well, and your shape Shifter
tonight is their CEO, Lee Nike. Lee, good evening. Thanks
so much for joining us tonight. I really appreciate you

(58:36):
taking the time on The Money Show this Wednesday evening.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Good evening, Stein, and thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
I do want to start at the very beginning, and
the earliest that I could find online was that you
started with a BS in computer science at the University
of quaziln Hotel from nineteen ninety five, and I wanted
to start by asking you if that's the part of
the country that you had originally come, if we had
to travel there to study.

Speaker 13 (59:03):
Well, absolutely, I actually grew up in Chatsworth in Durban
in South Africa, so I actually grew up there and
and he moved to Johannesburg when I got my first
job back with Anderson Consulting.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
What kind of community were you growing up in? I mean,
Chatsworth has a particular history in South Africa, particularly in
Ettequini in Durban. And what kind of family were you
coming from? What were you thinking of doing as you
were growing up?

Speaker 13 (59:34):
Well, it's a really good and complex questions even I
guess the first thing to say is that I grew
up in quite an impoverished community in Chatsworth, like many
townships in a part South Africa, and I grew up
in a time of a part eight.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
So that's the first point.

Speaker 13 (59:48):
The second point is that if you grew up in
a tough neighborhood where crime poverty is a an extreme,
it typically falls to the mother in your household to
keep you on the straights and era.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
So in my house was.

Speaker 13 (01:00:01):
Quite a regiment of going to school, doing his studies
and keeping out of mischief, and in the end you
end up becoming a lot academically stronger. And I always
remember my mom keeping us in that straight and narrow
and that big view was the only way to break
out of your circumstance of being grown up in poverty
is to study and hope that you'll get a scholarship

(01:00:23):
to go on to university. She did something quite interesting, Stephen.
I grew up in a time of no heroes, so
born in nineteen seventy six, which is an important here
in our history, graduating from high school in ninety four
important here in our democracy. But when I was growing up,
we actually didn't know any hero So any person that

(01:00:44):
was your role model was your mom, and in my case,
your mom kind of reminded you the consequences of not
studying and working hard was ending up in the township
and never breaking out of the potential that you may
see in yourself. So that allowed me, Stephen, to break
out actually optin a scholarship to go on to university,
without which we wouldn't have been able to afford to

(01:01:05):
fund my further studies.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
I was thinking about that time. There's just a one
year's age difference between you and I. I'm slightly older,
and I was lucky enough for my teenage years because
of the very different suburbs that I grew up in.
My father had a personal computer at home, and while
I never really thought of going into it, I was
lucky enough to play around with it. I mean, what

(01:01:30):
else are you going to do while he's at work? Right,
and I was thinking about how difficult it must have
been to go from Chatsworth to Straighten too computer science.
When I mentioned the opportunities for you to do the
same were incredibly limited.

Speaker 13 (01:01:44):
Well, it's really interesting and I'll tell you a story
that very few people don't know about me. So when
I was in Grade three or Standard one, as you
and I both would know from our childhoods, I had
the chance when computers were first introduced to the teachers
of Chatsworth. It this is literally in the foremost years
of our schooling careers. And I guess I was smarter

(01:02:06):
than a lot of kids in my school. But I
remember a very specific day back in Standard one or
grade three, where a minibus taxi picked up kids from
all the schools in Chatsworth and busters over to the
chats With Teacher's Training Center and seven for the first
time in my life, I saw this thing that was
called a computer, something that you were familiar with, I guess, but.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
It was this, you know, this big monster of a
monochrome on it.

Speaker 13 (01:02:32):
With black and green. And more interestingly, they had shown
us a teaching tool called a logo robot.

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
I was going to say, surely, tell me. It was logo.
I remember it so absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
So we had a logo robot on the floor.

Speaker 13 (01:02:46):
And this is a person that you know, we bare
had enough to make ends meet, and school was walking
to school every day and all we did was what
we did. So for this one day, Stephen, we got
to on a weekend go after the teacher's training center
and we got to tie and you know, left command
five steps forward and he heard the logo robot moved
on the floor. And that's interesting because that was a

(01:03:09):
grade three. The first time I owned an actual computer
was my final year of university. But back then, in
said one, I saw something and it's it's interesting because
it's such an early stage of my career, but it
felt like something different to everything else I knew in
my community, where they were no role models that you
had access to or saw, and that kind of shaped

(01:03:32):
my folks and listening to my mom focusing on that
and taking up many opportunities. And then if I fast
trapped that story when the neighborhood I grew up, and
it's called Bayview in Chatsworth, and back then, you may remember,
we had no suburb names. We actually had numbers. I
grew up in Unit to Chatsworth, and when we first
had libraries, at some point we read so many books

(01:03:56):
a week that I stumbled upon programming language books. And
I'd learned to program with a bunch of other kids
on pieces of paper. And my mom, being the stal
wart she was she and she's a both my parents
dropped out of high school to look after their own families.
She went off to the high school one year and
said to the high school teachers, you guys have computers.

(01:04:19):
These boys want access to them. And so I had access,
you know, to computers in my high school. And then
I went on to study computer science. For the time
I got onto, I guess study at eight or grade
ten when you could choose subjects. So I guess I
had that signal amongst the noise, this could be different.
And I followed this part not knowing where it'll take me,

(01:04:41):
And for whatever reason, by backing that pathway, I ended
up right now chatting Stephen Curtis on shape Shifters.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
So you study at UKs it in and I was
trying to put the numbers together without missing five steps.
But it seemed that you went from studying so literally
quite a big position at Arth Anderson then literally managing
director for IT Strategy and Transformation. I mean, no matter
how you diesid, you must have been doing that at
a very young age.

Speaker 13 (01:05:10):
Well, I guess when you spend nineteen years in one company,
you kind of can't cover the entire thing in your
LinkedIn resume. But it's actually interesting story. Stevens. I mentioned
briefly that if I hadn't gotten a scholarship, I wouldn't
have gone to university, and it so happened that I'd
gotten a Telcom scholarship for computer science to go to
UKs at n at the time. And it's interesting that

(01:05:32):
my final year of university I had the chance to
do vacation work at Telcom in their Durban offices, and
as you well know, head office is pretorious, so you
didn't get much.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Chance to experiment and see what potential there was.

Speaker 13 (01:05:46):
And after having done all this work to break out
of my circumstances in Chatsworth, it didn't feel like being
a developer was the way forward.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
And it's interesting that.

Speaker 13 (01:05:56):
When the companies do their university wrote shows that you,
as you'd remember in our final years of UNI, you
get to see what these guys have to offer, and
very similar to Harry Kellen that actually was with Arthur
Anderson in your show. A couple of weeks ago, I
joined the sister company called Anderson Consulting, which is the
opposite of the tax and accounting.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Business in that nineteen ninety eight time frame.

Speaker 13 (01:06:21):
So and I started my career not in strategy, actually
started my career in deep technology. When I started, we're
still the earliest part of our democracy, and as a
technology guy, I got to work on the coodest things ever, Stephen.
So my first project, for example, was to help build
the IEC that delivered the nineteen ninety nine elections. Nineteen

(01:06:43):
ninety four was kind of put together quite rapidly to
deliver the elections, but nineteen ninety nine we created the democracy.
I went from there to work with doctor Padilo Hotler
as a youngster twenty two to twenty three years of
age under mani senior people, but I got to work
on Census two thousand and one. So me in regard

(01:07:04):
as a youngster, I got to see democracy come to
life in a world where technology was enabling us to
see our potential and its earliest phases.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
And then, as you called out on my LinkedIn. I
got to then move.

Speaker 13 (01:07:18):
From being indeed technology to seeing the value of technology
in solving business and governmental problems. And I was asked
to head up IT strategy, probably around eight years into
my career, very very young, so I was one of
the youngest partners at thirty one to make partner at Accentia.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
As you talk, sort of remembering my own memories of
that time, and there were several big transitions. There was
the transition from the end of democracy, the end of
a party to democracy at the transition, and then the
beginnings of transformation. But there were also very important technological changes.
So cell phones had come in, the use of I

(01:08:00):
was exploding. Suddenly everybody was getting into it, and cell
phones then we're probably what we think of AI. Now
you know something that's going to change everything. The late
nineties were also quite an optimistic time leading up to
the sort of dot com boom. It must have been
the most amazing time to be a young person in
that field. The opportunities would have been huge to people

(01:08:21):
older than you didn't understand it. I mean, I'm guessing here,
and suddenly there must have been an opportunity.

Speaker 13 (01:08:27):
Well listen, there was ridiculous amounts of opportunity. Back in
nineteen ninety eight when we had gotten this deal to
help government build the elections. It is a time when
the likes of bull Gates it sponsored the software to
build elections, other big tech firms wanted to help us
realize our democracy and it was fascinating. People always think
that technology needs like fast lines to run on. You'd

(01:08:50):
be surprised that to deliver the ninety nine Men election,
we actually ran on a one K speed, not a
one gigabyte line one case speed using AVSE satellite technology
because in nineteen eighty nine we didn't connect South Africa.
Even today we're not connected. We have such a group

(01:09:10):
for growth in terms of coverage of technology. But back
in nineteen ninety eight nineteen eighty nine, the one thing
we did have was a low orbit vset technology covering
the country and we actually use that to build the
first elections for or the second elections. But the first
technology enabled one in nineteen ninety nine, So in terms
of pulling that off, it was so fascinating that we
had we had countries come visit the election center where

(01:09:34):
universities come and see things that had never ever been
done in our country. So you're right as a youngster
literally at twenty one and twenty two, you start and
see things that had never ever been done in this
country before, and you got to showcase that to other
people that only read the theory of what was possible.
So absolutely fascinating time to be alive and to be
an active part of our early democracy.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
When you are making this decisions? Now, does that time
inform me or thinking? Because you've seen how quickly things
can change. The thing about that time was that because
so much was changing, you could actually institute a new system.
A young person could come along and say you can
do it better, and you would be allowed to. Now
we don't have that moment. Now we have systems in place,

(01:10:20):
and so to change things is much harder. So does
that time still inform how you make decisions now when
you're running a company.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
I think it does.

Speaker 13 (01:10:28):
Stephen, One of the things that I think most leaders
try to focus on is how to align the entire.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
Business on a bigger purpose.

Speaker 13 (01:10:38):
Where we talk about the bigger purpose and I talk
about solving problems at matter and when I close my
eyes as a CEO, I don't think of the revenue
and the margin. I think of the better life for
all our people. I think about growing up in an
OURDP house, in chats with and sleeping on the floor.
So I have that context that keeps me firm on
regardless of your tribulation of the challenge you're going through,

(01:11:01):
how do we see beyond the challenge? So the first
thing is to do you personally believe in what you're
doing and if you can, then actually very few challenges
would come your way. And as a newcomer to this
TransUnion business. And it's interesting the way you introduced our business.
We've been around for one hundred and twenty four years.
When I arrived nine years ago. Well they were there

(01:11:21):
already before I got there, So LENI wasn't going to
come in and give them a miraculous cure to all
their ailments. I had to find a way to get
people to bind that journey. I had to find a
way to appreciate that unlike in the world of consulting
and big tech change, you can't change everything. So starting
to realize what cards you've been dealt and working with

(01:11:43):
those cards where they physically technological pieces, or the people
that work in the organization who CEOs create a recipiece
for success using what you have at your disposal, because
big bowl change isn't something you can afford to do
from a cost perspective, or may have the time to
do given in times to horizons.

Speaker 3 (01:12:03):
We're speaking to Lee Nike. He's the Seer of trans
Union Africa. Is your shape Shifter tonight on The Money Shows.

Speaker 9 (01:12:10):
The Money Show, Stephens is brought to you by Absolve
Corporate and Investment Banking, balancing economic growth with ecosystems. That's
how they've invested in your story.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
The Money Show Shape Shifters.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
Your shape Shifter tonight, the Seer of trans Union Africa,
Lee Nike.

Speaker 10 (01:12:29):
Lee.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
When I look to the world ahead, and we've been
talking a lot about it and that and that technology,
I see a lot of future. I think AI has
a lot of future. There are a lot of a
lot of threats as well, and I don't want to
go into specifics on this, but one of the things
I see is just so many sort of bad actors,
you know, hackers is one example. I sometimes think if
I were we're running a company like yours, I would

(01:12:53):
be I'll go to bed one night, probably on a
Friday night, so excited about the sort of possi ability
of what can happen in the next five years. And
I would go to bed on another night, maybe at
Sunday night, actually quite worried about things because there is
so much to sort of guard against. At the moment,
it feels, I mean, maybe I'm just getting old and pessimistic.

Speaker 13 (01:13:17):
Well, I can confirm that you and I have both
getting old, Stevens, that is true. I think the role
of a leader in a very digital centric world is
to have this control tower bird's eye view of all
the pieces.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
That are in front of us. You know, with the
many challenges that.

Speaker 13 (01:13:34):
Africa has, there's also equally opportunity so but equally so,
there are challenges that create these risks. Where it is cyber,
where it is fraud, what is the lack of trust
which is a bigger issue than both cyber and fraud
in Africa, where we just don't trust each other as
humans forget AI for that matter. And I think it's
about being able to balance this and as I mentioned

(01:13:57):
earlier before the break, your ability you connect with a
bigger purpose. In my case, I think about the problems
that guide me to see all these pieces with calm
and in compartments, because otherwise you'll just be too stressed out.
Something like financial inclusion or what I called solving a

(01:14:17):
problem that matters. These are the things that help CEOs
guide all through all these challenges, because if it wasn't
something bigger, you'd be overwhelmed by the challenges of the
moment that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
We have to deal with.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
Yeah, I mean, I suppose you also have to have
to think about what is going to change. Do you
have a vision of the future in some way? I mean,
are there certain trends that you can see of how
AI and IT trends are going to change our lives?
In the end, it's all about data and numbers.

Speaker 13 (01:14:50):
Listen, I've been writing about and talking about this forever.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
You probably see my LinkedIn profile.

Speaker 13 (01:14:56):
Back in twenty twelve, we spoke about the rise of
FNB to step up against the Amazons of the world.
You remember that time where we said every business is
a digital business. As early as that period, Stephen, we
forecast that around by twenty thirty, almost half of jobs
that exist will be replaced by automation. So in many
regards what is happening today, and maybe even at a

(01:15:19):
faster pace is happening like we foretold back in twenty
twelve and twenty thirteen. So for me, a couple of
things are happening. In my mind, I see that these
changes that are happening now, we're meant to happen. The
question for us as individuals, both you and I Steven
individually is how do we stay relevant in the world
that's changing, where jobs that we were well held in

(01:15:42):
the community are now being challenged by automation and robotic persons,
automation and just AI in and of itself. How do
you drive relevant individually? Equally so as businesses, given in
a world where things are quite tough, how do you
embrace technology as a table stakes to allow us to
become more effective and efficial and partner with technology deliver

(01:16:02):
better outcomes. A lot of what I write about is
talking about how we partner. I think that we just
are unable to do that tech is better to do,
but I think that we are better doing social and
creative intelligence.

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
The voice there of Lee Knight, the CEO at Trance
Union Africa a reminder, of course, that conversation we had
late last year. But yeah, very interesting to hear some
of that again and some of the issues around AI
and leadership. So fresh.

Speaker 9 (01:16:33):
The Money Show, Stephen Croutez, is brought to you by
Absolve corporate and investment banking, balancing economic growth with ecosystems.
That's how they've invested in your story.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
The one wonderful comment from our market commentator earlier tonight,
James Stewart talking about the issues around around how people
are going to interpret the latest data out of the US.
He suggested this was two hours ago, that it might
take the markets a while to interpret it. How righty
was The Dow Jones is up point zero four, the

(01:17:07):
Nasdaq is down point zero eight, the S and P
five hundred is up point one six. Markets not really
knowing where to go this evening. The State of the
Nation address tomorrow night during this time on this radio station.
We'll see you again on Friday, good evening at eight
o'clock

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