5 important things happening in South Africa today

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

• South Africa’s damaging birth certificate requirements for travellers with children could be done away with entirely as early as this week. President Ramaphosa has reportedly instructed the Department of Home Affairs to do away with the requirement, which had cost the local tourism industry billions in lost revenue before it was scaled back. [Media24]

• The personal data of South Africans who applied for home loans in the last 10 years may have been exposed through a security flaw in a web portal that registers and cancels home loans with the country’s biggest lenders. The company managing the platform says that the flaw has been patched, however the source who identified the problem says that vulnerabilities still exist. [MyBroadband]

• Investigative team at Scorpio is digging deeper into the EFF’s ties to looted money from VBS Bank, laying out a paper trail that links spending sprees by the EFF’s Floyd Shivambu to a slash fund containing money from the looting. Scorpio found that a credit card tied to the fund followed Shivambu around the country, paying for parties, groceries and luxury clothes and vehicles. [Daily Maverick]

• The City of Cape Town has effectively banned the use of fireworks for festivals such as Diwali, Guy Fawkes and New Years eve this year, but not designating any locations for their use, as was done in previous years. The city cited growing opposition to the use as of fireworks, as well as the costs involved with having to deploy and manage such areas. [702]

• All elements came together to create the perfect condition for the rand, as markets continue to anticipate an interest rate cut, coupled with optimism about a US-China trade negotiations, after the two nations reached a partial deal. The rand managed to gain significant ground against major currencies. On Monday the rand was at R14.74 to the dollar, R18.59 to the pound and R16.27 to the euro.