SA Daily Briefing, Wednesday, 22 July 2026

[Daniel]

Howzit, hope your Wednesday’s treating you better than Eskom treats a heatwave.

Wednesday, 22 July 2026

Another taxi shutdown could be coming our way
A provincial taxi industry is threatening to down tools next week over operating licences that just aren’t being issued or renewed fast enough. If you’ve ever tried to get anywhere in this country without a car, you know how quickly a taxi strike can turn a normal Tuesday into absolute chaos. Honestly, it’s the same story every time, government red tape grinding to a halt while ordinary commuters pay the price.
Read more →

Over 750 businesses went under this year already
Stats SA has picked its insolvency tracking back up and the numbers aren’t pretty, 753 businesses have folded so far in 2026. That’s a lot of jobs and a lot of dreams gone, and it tells you the economy is still under serious pressure no matter what the headlines say about recovery. I know a few small business owners around Pretoria who are barely hanging on, so this doesn’t surprise me one bit.
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The Diepsloot chicken queen making R720,000
This one’s a proper good news story for a change. A woman and her husband have built up a serious little empire in Diepsloot selling braaied chicken pieces and sides, and they’re pulling in R720,000 doing it. This is what I love about SA, people in the toughest circumstances finding a gap and just grafting until it works. More of this please.
[Read more →](The woman who makes R720,000 braaiing chicken pieces in one of South Africa’s most populated townships – BusinessTech]

Gauteng cop killed in Limpopo mine shootout
A Gauteng police officer was one of two people killed in a shootout linked to illegal mining activity in Limpopo, and the acting provincial commissioner has now ordered all available resources to hunt down those responsible. This zama zama violence just keeps escalating and it’s costing real lives, not just economic damage from stolen minerals. Feels like this problem has been left to fester for years and now it’s boiling over.
[Read more →](Mine clash turns deadly: Gauteng cop among two killed in Limpopo shootout | The Citizen]

So, taxi strikes, business closures and mine violence all in one morning, but also a reminder that ordinary South Africans keep hustling and building regardless. What do you reckon, is it time provinces sort out this operating licence backlog once and for all before we’re all stuck at home again next week?

Chat soon, have a good one.

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[Kabelo]

The taxi licence backlog thing hits close to home actually, my aunt runs a route in the East and she’s been waiting almost eight months for a renewal. From what she’s told me it’s not even that the department is being difficult on purpose, the whole system is still partly paper based with some provinces only just moving licence applications onto an e-services portal. When your backend is a mix of manual filing and a half migrated database, delays like this are basically guaranteed.

It’s the same story with a lot of government systems here, the tech isn’t the blocker, the process around it is. I’ve seen similar stuff with home affairs systems being down for days at a time.

Anyway, if the shutdown does happen next week, worth planning alternate routes now rather than finding out at 6am. Anyone know if this is provincial only or could spread nationally like the one in 2024 did?

[Arnold]

753 business closures this year doesn’t surprise me one bit, I saw the early warning signs of this plenty of times at Absa, the moment a business’s overdraft gets renewed on worse terms or pulled altogether, you’re usually looking at twelve to eighteen months before the doors shut for good. Same with this taxi licence backlog, provinces have been running a half manual process for years and calling it progress whenever they bolt on a web form, Kabelo’s right that the technology was never the actual bottleneck. If it does go national like 2024, the small shops right next to the ranks take the worst of it, stock sitting unsold and staff who can’t get to work either way.