{"id":135167,"date":"2016-09-01T07:47:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T05:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=135167"},"modified":"2016-09-01T07:47:01","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T05:47:01","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/135167\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-33\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things you need to know in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2016\/09\/01\/EFF-Pikitup-matter-could-force-vote-of-no-confidence-in-Mashaba\">Coalitions in major metros are already hitting problems, with the EFF threatening to remove DA mayor in Joburg, Herman Mashaba<\/a><\/strong>, over his plan to split up and sell waste management group, Pikitup. EFF&#8217;s policies are centred around nationalisation &#8211; the opposite to Mashaba&#8217;s plan. However, Mashaba says no process to privatise the company are underway.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/national\/2016\/09\/01\/treasury-blocks-eskoms-tegeta-contract\">Treasury has blocked Eskom from simply giving a R855 million coal contract to the Gupta-controlled Tegeta Exploration without following an open tender process.<\/a><\/strong> The contract is the same one which Eskom gave the Gupta company a R586 million extension to previously. If Treasury had not blocked the deal, Tegeta would have received R1.7 billion without an open tender.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/national\/2016\/09\/01\/gordhan-defends-hawks-no-show\">Finance minister has once again defended his decision to snub the Hawks&#8217; demand he appear for a warning statement.<\/a><\/strong> Gordhan said that the process of making a warning statement is completely option (equal to the &#8216;right to remain silent&#8217;) and that he was not going to play along with the Hawks&#8217; plan to publicly humiliate him. He accused the Hawks of leaking the letter to create a &#8216;media frenzy&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>President Jacob Zuma has submitted his replying affidavit to the Supreme Court of Appeal in the case of 783 charged of corruption leveled against him. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.da.org.za\/2016\/08\/zuma-corruption-charges-president-zuma-persists-losing-case\/\">As revealed by the DA, the president&#8217;s focus in his appeal is that there was a political conspiracy against him<\/a><\/strong>, and\u00a0that his case\u00a0is ripe for appeal in order to obtain legal clarity on \u201cwhether the NPA may\u2026discontinue the prosecution on the basis of allegations of abuse of process.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand tumbled to its weakest in three weeks on\u00a0Wednesday after reports that <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/135151\/massive-blow-as-major-lender-cuts-funding-to-eskom-sanral-and-other-soes-report\/\">a large asset manager was\u00a0halting loans to state-owned firms<\/a><\/strong>, spooking investors\u00a0already concerned about the management of the\u00a0economy. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR\">On Thursday, the rand was trading at R14.70 to the dollar, R19.32 to the pound and R16.40 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In global news<\/strong>:\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N1BC490\">Asian shares dipped on Thursday after lower crude oil prices\u00a0dented Wall Street<\/a><\/strong> and a pair of Chinese manufacturing\u00a0surveys did little to inspire investors as markets waited to\u00a0see if U.S. employment data could put the Federal Reserve on\u00a0track to hike interest rates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Treasury just blocked Eskom from giving the Guptas another R855 million; Coalitions in major metros are already looking shaky; and Zuma has given reasons why he shouldn&#8217;t face 783 charges of corruption &#8211; here&#8217;s what is happening in SA today (1 September)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":132826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-135167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135167","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=135167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135171,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135167\/revisions\/135171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}