{"id":110171,"date":"2016-01-26T16:55:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T14:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=110171"},"modified":"2016-01-26T16:58:40","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T14:58:40","slug":"5-things-to-know-right-now-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/110171\/5-things-to-know-right-now-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things to know right now in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Need to catch up on the biggest news stories of the day? Here\u2019s the BusinessTech wrap:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has released a <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/columns\/110139\/unbelievable-letter-shows-blatant-corruption-in-sa-government\/\">damning letter showing how government aims to siphon off state funds for the ANC&#8217;s election purposes<\/a><\/strong>. The premier says the practice has become so commonplace that senior officials put out official requests for it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Meanwhile, Co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister David van Rooyen says <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/110005\/municipalities-please-stop-wasting-money\/\">municipalities must prepare to tighten their belts, as state funds are running thin<\/a> <\/strong>thanks to government plugging the many holes in state-owned companies amid a slowing economy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Racism remains a hot topic in 2016, and former radio host Gareth Cliff is currently duking it out in court against M-net, who he claims fired him unfairly from his Idols gig for apparent racism. M-Net is sticking to its guns, saying that <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/110123\/we-dont-want-to-be-associated-with-a-racist-m-net-on-cliff\/\">it wants nothing to do with him anymore<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/110091\/vodacom-and-mtn-fear-becoming-dumb-pipes\/\">Parliament has opened discussions about the regulation of over-the-top (OTT)<\/a><\/strong> services such as WhatsApp and Facebook in South Africa. MTN and Vodacom are calling for regulation, for fear of becoming &#8220;dumb pipes&#8221; &#8211; while other industry players, like Cell C, are <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/153055-dont-tell-me-what-i-can-do-with-my-data-expert.html\">against any moves to stifle their operation in the country<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Sticking with telecoms, MTN still faces heavy fines in Nigeria &#8211; and word from the Nigerian government is that <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/110151\/mtn-urged-to-drop-legal-action-in-nigeria-report\/\">MTN\u00a0should drop its court challenge against the fines if it wants to foster a settlement with the country<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And in other news: Tolling (and soon tax abuse) opposition group, Outa says that <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/110095\/e-tolls-compliance-at-9-says-outa\/\">e-toll compliance in Gauteng has hit only 9%<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; using the figure as irrefutable proof that the system has failed. &#8220;You can continue tolling, but no one is paying. Take it or leave it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Need to catch up on the biggest news stories of the day? Here\u2019s the BusinessTech wrap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":96059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[9982,26,10981],"class_list":["post-110171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-businesstech","tag-headline","tag-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110171"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110179,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110171\/revisions\/110179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}