Coming up on Carte Blanche on M-Net & M-Net HD [101], Sunday 09 November 2025 at 19:00
Blueprint for Corruption
In June, we went inside Johannesburg’s Metro Centre to expose the state of the City’s archives: around one million building plans tumbled from shelves and lay mouldering on the floor in a condemned building, while employees were relocated to safety. Our guide: a civil servant who seemed eager to share his frustration at the collapse of service delivery. Little did we know that, three months later, our inside man would be accused of selling the very building plans he’s meant to organise. We return to investigate a government official taking service delivery to the next level.
Producer: Harri Vithi
Presenter: Masa Kekana
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Hot Copper
South Africa is being unplugged. Once a small-scale crime of opportunity, copper theft has morphed into a shadow industry as syndicates, smugglers and silent buyers strip the nation for profit. With cargo trucks, foundries and warehouses being targeted, legitimate traders are forced to hire armed escorts to protect their assets. Meanwhile, train networks halt, vital infrastructure is crippled, and communities are plunged into darkness. We get the inside track on the movement of stolen copper and meet the companies hunting down syndicates. It’s not just copper theft: it’s sabotage of our national stability. Carte Blanche connects the wires on the illicit copper trade.
Producer: Nicky Troll
Presenter: Govan Whittles
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The Final Shift
What happens to a town when the mine that built it fades? In Postmasburg, on the edge of the Kalahari, generations of miners and their families have lived in the shadow and dust of the Beeshoek iron ore mine, while the mine club at the town’s heart has bred more than its share of rugby stars. But now, its future hangs in the balance. Soaring tariffs, a spiralling energy crisis, and collapsing transport networks have dismantled the local steel industry. The ore that once fuelled jobs now feeds foreign furnaces, and the mine that has sustained a community for 99 years will not see its centenary. As the country’s industrial heart falls silent, one small community faces a reckoning.
Producer: Anina Peens
Presenter: Govan Whittles
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Seeds of Survival
Deep under the Arctic snow and ice, a hidden “Doomsday Vault” safeguards the world’s crop diversity. The Svalbard Seed Vault is a rare beacon of global cooperation and trust, an insurance policy against war, agricultural disaster and climate catastrophe. But even as a new consignment of seeds is deposited in the vault, the impacts of climate change are making themselves visible to scientists and residents. Carte Blanche witnesses the work of a place that symbolises a fragile but enduring global trust, and asks: how long before the vault’s ambitious plan to battle climate collapse is really put to the test?
Producer & Presenter: Nickolaus Bauer
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Carte Blanche: The Podcast
Unique stories. Unique perspectives. Carte Blanche: The Podcast delves beneath the headlines into South African and global issues, bringing you the stories that matter. Like what you hear? Drop us a rating or review.
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Please note Carte Blanche line-ups are subject to change.
