Sibonelo Radebe wrote some of the best BEE stories in SA
Radebe had the ability to sneak into exclusive meetings where workers would plot how to claim BEE shares and dividends they felt were due to them but not delivered by employers
A big tree in the forest of financial journalism has fallen. A great journalist who spent time recording black economic empowerment (BEE) stories is no more. Sibonelo Radebe, a grandson of Mthimkhulu (Big Tree) of the AmaHlubi nation has dropped his sharp pen permanently. The hand that contributed to the writing of the most accurate and informative black business stories in SA moves no more. Radebe was a wordsmith extraordinaire. Many of those who worked with him at the now defunct Johnnic/Avusa building in Biermann Avenue, Rosebank attest that his copy needed no surgery at the subeditors desk. In fact, if all the writers at Business Day and Financial Mail were as succinct and delightful to the reader as Radebe was, the subeditors desk risked being rendered irrelevant. He also did not have a deficit of naughtiness in his youthfulness. Stories are plenty of how he and a colleague (now a family man and adviser to JSE-listed companies) would disappear with the company Toyota Tazz to "g...
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