{"id":136897,"date":"2016-09-16T07:54:29","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T05:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=136897"},"modified":"2016-09-16T07:54:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T05:54:29","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/136897\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-42\/","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\/16\/EWN-exclusive-Joel-Netshitenzhe-criticises-Hawks-over-Gordhan-pursuit\">Another member of the ANC executive has spoken out against the Hawks for their pursuit of finance minister Pravin Gordhan &#8211;\u00a0Joel Netshitenzhe &#8211; calling the case against the minister &#8220;politicking&#8221;.<\/a><\/strong> This comes as minister\u00a0ANC high-ups call for officials and ministers to not air their views publicly, and rather address concerns in private. A number of current and former ANC officials have spoken out and taken sides in the matter, revealing a divided ruling party on a number of matters, including the ongoing Gupta saga.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/economy\/2016\/09\/16\/renewed-fight-to-save-sas-rating\">Rating agency Moody&#8217;s has told South Africa in no uncertain terms that it is at serious risk of a downgrade, having out several state-owned companies up for a review<\/a><\/strong>. The group is in the country next week, and has adjusted the growth forecast down to 0.2%, while warning that political infighting is a big blight on the ratings map. Moody&#8217;s has South Africa two notches above junk status, unlike Fitch and S&amp;P Gobal where the country is one notch above.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business\/companies\/bnp-charged-over-saa-deal-2068575\">Civil group Outa says it has laid charges against the CEO of BnP Capital &#8211; the small financier who almost scored a R256 million contract with SAA<\/a><\/strong>. Outa exposed corrupt activity in the contract, including the fact that BnP was not licenced. Outa is laying the charge on grounds of fraud, uncompetitive behaviour, and non-disclosure of important information.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bdlive.co.za\/business\/energy\/2016\/09\/16\/nuclear-power-call-is-based-on-outdated-plans-warns-yelland\">Energy expert Chris Yelland has warned that South Africa&#8217;s nuclear plans are based on old data &#8211; and that the country will now likely have an unnecessary surplus of power thanks to government&#8217;s poor management in developing projects<\/a><\/strong>. According to Yelland, the &#8216;need&#8217; for 9600MW of nuclear power is based on 2010 data, while energy demand has dropped significantly since 2011. Government has failed to accurately forecast the last 5 years, so thinking it will be able to forecast the next 15 is a mistake, he said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand gained more than 1 percent on Thursday, stretching a recent recovery into a second consecutive session after weak U.S. retail sales data boosted investor appetite for high-yielding emerging market assets. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR\">On Friday the rand is trading at R14.21 to the dollar, R18.81 to the pound and R15.97 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\/idAFL8N1BS0BF\">Asian stocks wavered on Thursday as investors grappled with the apparently diminishing ability of major central banks to stimulate growth<\/a><\/strong>, while a tumble in crude oil prices added to the risk-averse mood.\u00a0Wall Street rallied 1 percent on Thursday, buoyed by Apple&#8217;s best four-day run since 2014, higher oil prices and ho-hum economic data that further dimmed expectations for an interest rate hike next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another ANC official speaks out against the Hawks case against Gordhan; South Africa&#8217;s nuclear plan is based on outdated information; Moody&#8217;s is not keen on all the political infighting going on; and Outa moves in the unlicenced financier that almost scored R256 million from SAA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":96265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-136897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136897","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=136897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136899,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136897\/revisions\/136899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}