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PODCAST

The Lead

Seasoned broadcast journalist Graeme Raubenheimer brings you The Lead, News24’s definitive podcast for in-depth reporting. Join us every Monday to Thursday at 19:00 SAST for candid conversations with our top journalists, and discover what they saw, heard, and uncovered in their relentless pursuit of the big story. Episodes drop on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube like clockwork. WhatsApp: 072 562 3179 or mail: thelead@24.com. This is The Lead, and this is the South African story.

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All Episodes

34:41

Has the NPA messed up again? Karyn Maughan on why Ace...

The Lead ·

2025/06/05

She’s a free woman. Moroadi Cholota, the former assistant to then-Free State Premier Ace Magashule, has won her special plea against the National Prosecuting Authority. The Free State High Court in Bloemfontein declared her extradition from the United States “unlawful” following a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that only the justice minister may request extradition. The ruling leaves the NPA with a bloody nose, and many legal experts have warned that this trial-within-a-trial may have far-reaching

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29:43

Bye-bye Floyd - why MK speared Shivambu as SG, with...

The Lead ·

2025/06/04

He took off his red beret to take up the spear. But the writing’s been on the wall for some time before the MK Party booted Floyd Shivambu out of its secretary-general office on Tuesday and onto the benches in Parliament. “Floyd’s visit to [Shepherd Bushiri] in Malawi was an excuse they could find to take action against him,” says News24 political editor Andisiwe Makinana who joins us in the studio to discuss what this shift means for Shivambu’s political prospects. Later in the show, South

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25:17

Selling sweets to pay for matric ball and May’s best...

The Lead ·

2025/06/03

From a viral Grade 12 pupil selling sweets every morning at a local taxi rank to attend his matric dance to a young Ikeys rugby star who got a shock call-up from Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus, by the end of Tuesday’s discussion with Good News editor Paul Herman in The Lead, we hope to leave you feeling extra inspired and proud to be a South African. Later in the show, host Graeme Raubenheimer discusses controversial Gauteng tenderpreneur Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala who abandoned his bid for bail in

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18:20

Suspected ISIS SA leader appears in a Joburg court,...

The Lead ·

2025/06/02

The Hawks’ Crimes Against the State unit believe they’ve caught a suspected senior leader in the Islamic State terrorist network operating right out of Johannesburg’s inner city. Abubakar Ali (39) appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Monday to apply for bail after he was arrested in Fordsburg on a charge of carrying an unlicensed firearm. The Lead host, Graeme Raubenheimer, crosses to News24’s Tankiso Makhetha in court, who tells us why the case has been postponed to 11 June when

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37:15

News24 finds ‘hornet’s nest’ of fake news, with...

The Lead ·

2025/05/29

Like most fake news these days, it all started with a friend’s WhatsApp message, sharing an article with the header: “Cape Town drivers to face congestion tax starting June 1st”. With a quick Google search, we found that the City of Cape Town had already rubbished this article as fake news. But when News24 Disinformation Desk Editor Andrew Thompson investigated the source of the article, he found a whole lot more than he bargained for. An Indian digital agency was using hijacked South African

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20:17

From Lesotho to Emfuleni, securing SA’s precious...

The Lead ·

2025/05/28

It’s a mammoth legacy project critical to keeping the taps flowing in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and the rest of Gauteng well into the future. However, the tax costs associated with ensuring that phase two of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project goes as planned have ballooned exponentially. Given the Water and Sanitation Ministry’s history of immense wasteful spending in recent years, it’s not all that surprising. As News24’s Climate Editor Lameez Omarjee reports, yet another investigation into our

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30:31

Johannesburg’s R16.3bn blackhole, with Khaya Koko

The Lead ·

2025/05/27

The City of Gold that once shone brightly has been dumped into darkness. This is partly due to the city’s troubled electricity entity, City Power, which, according to an Auditor-General’s report, has been in deep financial trouble for several years. According to a report by Khaya Koko, an investigative journalist at News24, there are now serious concerns that the metro’s top leaders, like Mayor Dada Morero, are allegedly hiding the extent of the problem from the council. Koko writes that City Power

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28:12

Derailed - how Prasa fixes trains and then leave them...

The Lead ·

2025/05/26

Remember those old yellow and grey Metrorail trains? The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) is shelling out billions of your tax money to refurbish them. But instead of ferrying people to and from work, they’re being left to rot in train stockyards across the country. News24 investigative journalist Sipho Masondo is pushing to figure out why PRASA is fixing the old trains but not utilising them: “When former Prasa executives sent this memo to the former minister, Fikile Mbalula, Prasa was

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54:04

Special edition: Trump vs Ramaphosa with News24’s top...

The Lead ·

2025/05/22

Unprecedented and historic scenes played out in the White House on Wednesday night when US President Donald Trump had a television rolled into the Oval Office, playing a video of EFF leader, Julius Malema, singing ‘Kill the Boer’ to drive home the claim of “white genocide” in South Africa. However, following lunch with Trump, champion golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, billionaires Elon Musk and Johann Rupert, President Cyril Ramaphosa insisted to reporters that: “There’s doubt and disbelief in

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26:03

Budget cuts, a fuel levy increase and SA’s debt...

The Lead ·

2025/05/21

It’s not a statement you would’ve seen two months ago. The Democratic Alliance on Wednesday said it’s “cautiously” supporting Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Budget, albeit version 3.0. The latest iteration proposes, among other measures, spending cuts for education, health the Passenger Rail Agency (PRASA) while Treasury promises a significant overhaul of expenditure in future budgets. The SA Revenue Services (SARS) is also getting a big chunk of the budget to assist in plugging the revenue

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22:18

Deal or no deal? Ramaphosa ready for Trump

The Lead ·

2025/05/20

Can they strike a deal? This is perhaps the big question on the lips of geopolitical and economic analysts as President Cyril Ramaphosa and US counterpart Donald Trump meet in Washington, DC, this week. Some South African products, like citrus and car parts, enjoyed duty-free access to the US market until the Trump administration implemented an unprecedented tariff regime. The meeting comes amid an unprecedented push to lure more South African farmers to the US under the guise of a controversial

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22:15

Has Vusi ‘Cat’ Matlala run out of lives? Jeff Wicks...

The Lead ·

2025/05/19

He is languishing in a prison cell for an attempted hit on his former lover, and now the walls are closing in on tender don, Vusimusi ‘Cat’ Matlala, for a now cancelled R360-million SAPS health services tender allegedly unduly awarded to his company, Medicare 24 Tshwane District in 2024. Matlala’s bail proceedings on Monday in connection with allegedly orchestrating the failed attempt on actress Tebogo Thobejane’s life in 2023 have been postponed to 30 May. In the meantime, officials with the

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24:27

Is Ramaphosa wasting his time with Trump? With Pieter...

The Lead ·

2025/05/15

Youth unemployment, crumbling municipal infrastructure, persistent power cuts and escalating crime levels remain South Africa’s reality. Yet President Cyril Ramaphosa finds himself increasingly pulled into global conflict scenarios. In the aftermath of Ramaphosa labelling the first group of “Afrikaner refugees” leaving for the US on Sunday as “cowards” and “colonialists”, News24 assistant editor for investigations Pieter du Toit reckons the president’s tour to Washington DC next week could prove to

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17:45

NAMPO farmers tell Nick Wilson they’re staying

The Lead ·

2025/05/14

President Cyril Ramaphosa described the first group of so-called “Afrikaner refugees”, who took up the US Trump Administration’s invitation to resettle in the states as “cowards” who’ll soon return to South Africa. The president surprised many South African farmers attending this week’s NAMPO agriculture expo in Bothaville in the Free State. Our man-on-the-beat there, Nick Wilson, doorstopped Ramaphosa, who was shopping, in his capacity as a fellow farmer. Ramaphosa told Wilson of the “refugees’”

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29:44

'I am an Afrikaner', with Adriaan Basson

The Lead ·

2025/05/13

Whatever you’d like to call them; the “49ers”, the “Amerikaners”, the “Afrikaner refugees”, they’ve officially discarded Madiba’s Rainbow Flag for Eisenhower’s Stars and Stripes. Their departure, facilitated by the Trump administration, has generated intense debate over the Afrikaners’ place in this world. But for News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson, two things have never been more crystal clear. One is that he’s certain of his heritage: “I consider myself an Afrikaner. I identify as an Afrikaner

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21:26

The first ‘Amerikaners’ leave SA, with Alex Mitchley

The Lead ·

2025/05/12

The annals of SA/US relations are at a watershed. They’ll historically show that in early May 2025, after a run of public holidays celebrating South Africa’s hard-fought transition to democracy, the first group of Afrikaners took up the Trump Administration’s offer to relocate to the United States as official “refugees”. And they flew out of Gauteng for Virginia with not so much as a song or dance. News24 journalist Alex Mitchley had no luck getting any of them to agree to an interview, but observed

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30:07

There’s more than enough good news to go around, here...

The Lead ·

2025/05/08

Between the headlines on disaster, corruption, and crime are stories that delight South Africans. In fact, some of the most read articles on News24 over the past month have been good news stories. News24’s Good News Editor Paul Herman talks to us about how a Kraaifontein man used his R350 grant to build a vegetable produce business, how budding Springbok star Siphosethu Mnebelele overcame the loss of his parents to make the national junior side, and how a Mitchells Plain man came from humble

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23:00

The ‘Sheriff of Cape Town’s’ case against the police...

The Lead ·

2025/05/07

He’s sometimes referred to as the “Sheriff of Cape Town”. A senior DA politician who’s occupied a top City post for 16 years. The City’s Safety and Security Mayoral Committee Member, JP Smith, is challenging the validity of a SAPS raid on his city council offices in January, claiming it was all meant to tarnish his political credibility. The raid follows a construction corruption trial implicating Smith’s ex-colleague and housing mayco member, Malusi Booi, and alleged gang boss Ralph Stanfield

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17:07

Families, survivors commemorate the George building...

The Lead ·

2025/05/06

Considered one of South Africa’s deadliest construction disasters, May 6, 2025, marks a year since 34 people were killed in the George residential building collapse in the Western Cape. As their families, friends and the 28 survivors pause to hold a memorial, justice in the wake of evidence of poor workmanship remains elusive. “It was really a sombre moment. We heard beautiful songs by some of the local choirs, and in the background, you could hear the family members breaking down and them wailing,“

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24:01

Zero accountability in Joburg cleaning tender saga

The Lead ·

2025/05/05

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the City of Johannesburg's Property Company entity shelled out more than R18 million in what's understood to be inflated payments, all for deep cleaning and sanitation at its premises. The Special Investigating Unit soon smelled a rat. Still, the entity's CEO, Helen Botes, became the city's acting operations executive (COO). And even got the backing of senior advocate Pule Seleka to claim the SIU's investigation into her dodgy contract awarding "lacked

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129 results

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