Business

5 important thing happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·25 Apr 2017

Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:

• The department of education is launching an investigation into claims made by presidential hopeful, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma that school children were being taught to hate the ANC in the school curriculum. Dlamini-Zuma is pinning her election campaign on the same spin that president Zuma pushes – that the view that the ANC is corrupt and ineffective is driven by external forces painting such a narrative to undermine governance.

• Former government spokesman and opponent of “white monopoly capital”, Mzwanele Manyi says that while junk status is not good for South Africa, everyone overreacted. Manyi is president of the Progressive Professionals’ Forum and promotes “radical economic transformation”, and us firmly in the Gupta camp, often defending them against being painted as villains in SA business.

• Victims of SIM-swap fraud  are gearing up to take some SA banks and mobile operators to court. Around 20 clients of Absa, Standard Bank, FNB and Capitec, and mobile operators Vodacom and MTN will be approaching the courts to demand information and action from the groups. The highest amount lost to SIM swap fraud by those in the action is R1.8 million, while the lowest is R43,000.

• The ANC said it will introduce an amended land rights bill in parliament in May after the Constitutional Court declared a law that re-opened a process for blacks to make claims on land taken from them during white-minority rule, invalid. The draft bill, which will be open for public comment until May 19, seeks to extend the date for lodging a land claim to 30 June 2021.

• South Africa’s rand hit a three-week high against the dollar on Monday as emerging markets were buoyed by France’s presidential election first-round win for the market’s preferred candidate. On Tuesday the rand was trading at R13.03 to the dollar, R16.68 to the pound and R14.16 to the euro.