947 breakfast presenter Anele Mdoda is facing calls for her removal from air and a boycott of the Johannesburg radio station after she said Springbok André Esterhuizen should be banned from rugby over a 2012 schoolboy racial-slur case that resurfaced when he was named Test captain.
On Wednesday, 23 September 2026, Mdoda posted on X in response to coverage of the old disciplinary matter: “He should be banned from playing rugby period!”
The comment followed Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus naming Esterhuizen South Africa’s 68th Test captain for the one-off match against Australia at Optus Stadium in Perth on Sunday, 27 September 2026. Kick-off was 11:45 SAST. Regular captains and senior leaders Siya Kolisi, Jesse Kriel and Pieter-Steph du Toit were not available. Esterhuizen, 32, started at inside centre.
Erasmus said Esterhuizen had captained the Sharks through a difficult period, accepted hybrid roles in the national setup, and that giving him the armband would add another player who had led the Springboks heading towards the next World Cup.
The 2012 case
In 2012 Esterhuizen was 18 and in his matric year at Klerksdorp High School. During a school match against Potchefstroom Gymnasium he was found guilty of directing a racial slur at Thabo Molete, then first-team coach at Potchefstroom Gymnasium and coach of the Leopards Grant Khomo side.
He appeared before a Leopards Rugby Union disciplinary panel made up of advocate Johan Pretorius, Johan le Grange and Makwezi Best. The panel found him guilty of misconduct. He received a one-year ban, later treated as a six-month suspension on condition that he completed a life-skills course. He was also removed from the Leopards Craven Week squad.
Then Leopards president Andre May said at the time that he hoped there was a life lesson in the outcome for the player and for others in the game. Esterhuizen matriculated in 2012 and moved to Durban in 2013 to join the Sharks. He later captained the Sharks, including in the United Rugby Championship.
Contemporary reports of the school case were recirculated after the captaincy announcement. Some users congratulated Esterhuizen. Others argued the 2012 finding should bar him from playing or from leading the national side. Mdoda’s post became one of the most widely shared interventions.
Response to Mdoda
Replies to Mdoda included criticism that she was applying a lifetime ban to an 18-year-old offence for which a union hearing had already imposed a sanction. Users pointed to the life-skills condition, the absence of later public disciplinary findings of the same kind against Esterhuizen, and his subsequent senior career at the Sharks and with the Springboks.
Esterhuizen did not issue a written statement on the 2012 case. On Instagram and Facebook, under a brand-ambassador post, he liked comments that referred to the renewed attack on his past. One liked comment said people would always use the past against him and that change was what counted. Another, addressed to him by name, told him to ignore Mdoda and described a person as the sum of best moments, mistakes and growth.
On Saturday, 26 September 2026, SA Rugby blocked questions about the 2012 slur at a press conference ahead of the Perth Test. A media liaison told journalists not to raise the matter and cut off a reporter who tried to ask. SA Rugby’s communications unit had been approached earlier in the week; no public comment on the historic case was issued before the match.
The Test
Australia beat South Africa 42-38. The Wallabies led 24-17 at half-time and 42-17 after about 65 minutes before South Africa scored late through a penalty try, Morne van den Berg and Ox Nche. Australia finished the match with as few as 11 players after late yellow cards.
Esterhuizen played the full 80 minutes. After the match he said Australia had capitalised on South African errors and that discipline had cost his side.
Boycott campaign against 947
By Saturday, 26 September, the argument had moved from Esterhuizen’s captaincy to Mdoda’s employer. Listeners posted “boycott 947” graphics, said they had removed the station from pre-set radio lists, and called for Mdoda to be taken off the breakfast show Anele and the Club.
Users also circulated instructions on how to lodge a complaint with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa. 947 is a Primedia station. No public statement from 947 or Primedia addressing Mdoda’s X post, the boycott calls or her position on the show had been issued by the afternoon of Tuesday, 29 September 2026.
Some of the posts attacking Mdoda also referred to a separate Special Investigating Unit matter involving her husband, Bonelela Mgudlwa. In that case the Special Tribunal found two Covid-era PPE contracts worth more than R14 million irregular and invalid. Mgudlwa has said Mdoda had no connection to those 2020 contracts and that the dealings predated their relationship.
Mdoda has not withdrawn the 23 September post. Esterhuizen has not given a detailed public account of the 2012 hearing beyond the social-media likes already recorded. The Springboks selection stood. He captained the side in Perth. The dispute is now split between the rugby case that was heard and sanctioned in 2012, and the demand that 947 act against its presenter for calling for a ban 14 years later.
Taxi shot at in Amawoti, then crashes into municipal truck — driver trapped, passengers injured
A loaded minibus taxi came under fire in Amawoti, Inanda, north of Durban, on Monday afternoon, 28 September 2026. The driver was seriously injured. More than eight passengers were also reported injured after the vehicle crashed while the driver tried to get away from the shots.
The taxi was a white Toyota Quantum. It was fully loaded and approaching a passenger drop-off point when a passenger saw three males on the opposite side of the road. The males were believed to be teenagers. Two stood together. The third walked toward the taxi and fired about five shots at the vehicle.
The driver accelerated to escape the gunfire. The Quantum then struck the rear of a municipal truck.
The impact left the driver trapped in the wreckage. Members of the public used a grinder to cut the driver’s door and pull him out. He had serious injuries and was treated by ambulance personnel at the scene.
Several passengers were also treated at the scene. The exact number of injured passengers and the type of injuries they sustained could not be confirmed immediately. Reports put the number of injured passengers at more than eight.
One spent cartridge casing was found inside the white Toyota Quantum.
Emergency responders arrived after reports of a shooting and a motor vehicle accident. The scene was chaotic. No further confirmed details were immediately available on the identities of those injured, the condition of the municipal truck driver, arrests, or a motive for the shooting.
Amawoti, also written Amaoti, is a township in the Inanda area of eThekwini, KwaZulu-Natal. The shooting and the collision remained under investigation.
Wanted husband arrested after running onto N2 in Lamontville murder case
A man wanted for the murder of his wife in Lamontville has been arrested after a foot chase that ended on the N2, where he was struck by a vehicle.
The suspect was sought in connection with the death of 30-year-old Phindile Zuma. She was stabbed last Thursday inside the shack she shared with him. Their three-year-old son was present when she was killed.
A neighbour heard the commotion and went to check. The husband turned the neighbour away. He remained at the dwelling until Sunday.
On Sunday the child told neighbours that his mother was hurt inside. Neighbours entered and found Zuma’s decomposing body on the blood-stained floor. It is believed the boy and the suspect had stayed in the shack with the body for four days.
Lamontville SAPS officers spotted the wanted man in the area on Tuesday. They chased him on foot to the N2. He ran into freeway traffic and was hit by a car. The incident is being treated as a possible suicide attempt.
He was apprehended by Lamontville SAPS detectives, with assistance from Lamontville SAPS Visible Policing, PT Alarms, Blue Security and Fitama Protection Services.
Zuma and the suspect lived together in the shack. The child who raised the alarm is three years old. The alleged killing took place on Thursday. The body was discovered on Sunday. The arrest followed on Tuesday after the chase onto the N2.
The suspect is in custody. The murder investigation is ongoing.
E-hailing driver shot and left critical after armed robbery on Fernham Drive near Bhambayi
An e-hailing driver was shot and left in a critical condition during an armed robbery on Fernham Drive, near Bhambayi in Phoenix, north of Durban.
The driver had been requested to collect passengers near Alverstone. On arrival in the area he was confronted by four male suspects. He was shot during the robbery. The suspects then fled on foot towards Bhambayi.
The same suspects are believed to have possibly been involved in an earlier armed robbery of an Uber Eats delivery rider in the area. That possible connection had not been officially confirmed.
KZN VIP Security, the South African Police Service and KZN VIP Medical and Rescue responded to the scene. Medical personnel stabilised the driver on site before he was transported urgently to a medical facility for further treatment.
Emergency services remained in attendance after the injured driver was removed. SAPS is investigating the circumstances of the robbery and shooting.
Fernham Drive runs through the Phoenix and Inanda area and borders the Bhambayi settlement. Alverstone is in the same northern eThekwini corridor. At the time the incident was first reported, police had not publicly released the driver’s name, age, the platform he was working for, the exact time of the attack, whether property was taken from the vehicle, or the type of firearm used.
No arrests had been confirmed. The driver’s condition after arrival at hospital had not been independently updated.
Anyone with information about the shooting on Fernham Drive, or about the earlier reported robbery of a delivery rider in the same area, should report it to SAPS.
Two Dunoon Shopkeepers Shot Dead at Separate Stores as CCTV Shows Gunmen Firing Through Counter
Two shopkeepers were shot dead at separate business premises in Dunoon, Cape Town, on Saturday, 26 September 2026.
The victims were men aged 51 and 56. They were killed at shops in Orchard Street and Thandabantu Street. They are understood to have been foreign nationals. Police have not released their names.
Western Cape police confirmed that Milnerton SAPS is investigating two murder cases. Police spokesperson Constable Ndakhe Gwala said the two men were shot and fatally wounded at their respective business premises. He said the circumstances surrounding the shootings are under investigation. No arrest has been made.
CCTV footage circulating on Monday shows people inside a small Dunoon shop dropping behind a counter as gunfire is directed at the counter. In the recording, a first gunman puts a firearm through the money slot in the counter and fires several rounds. A second gunman then fires. A third gunman follows. The three then run off. Posts sharing the video describe the attackers as extortionists targeting shopkeepers.
Police have not publicly confirmed that the circulating clip is footage of either of the two fatal shootings. They have not given an official date or time for that specific recording. No further injuries have been separately confirmed beyond the two deaths already reported at the two business premises.
Dunoon lies on the northern outskirts of Cape Town, near Killarney Gardens and Table View. Small shops in the area have been repeatedly linked to alleged protection-fee demands. Western Cape Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Sizakhele Dyantyi said 109 extortion cases were reported in the province between April and June 2026. Of those, 52 involved protection-racket extortion. Spaza shops and tuck shops were the most frequently targeted premises in that period, accounting for 13 reported cases.
On 20 June 2026, Dunoon community activist and Democratic Alliance Ward 104 candidate Sinovuyo Dyokwe, 48, was shot dead in Mnandi Street while walking home from a voter-registration venue. Police said a gunman approached her on foot and opened fire. Preliminary police information later indicated that she had allegedly been subjected to extortion and forced to pay protection money, and that she was threatened after refusing to continue payments. Serious Violent Crime detectives arrested a 37-year-old man in Dunoon on 24 July 2026. Police alleged he was the mastermind behind her murder and linked him to extortion charges.
No suspects have been identified in the 26 September shopkeeper murders. Police have not released a description of the gunmen, the type of firearms used, or whether the two scenes are being treated as linked.
Anyone with information can contact police on 08600 10111 or through the MySAPS app.
