{"id":141897,"date":"2016-11-01T07:59:56","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T05:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=141897"},"modified":"2016-11-01T07:59:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T05:59:56","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/141897\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-74\/","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:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2016\/11\/01\/Blame-game-begins-after-charges-against-Gordhan-dropped\">Now that charges of fraud against finance minister Pravin Gordhan have been dropped, people are calling for head of the NPA Shaun Abrahams to be sacked &#8211; though Abrahams himself was clear in placing the blame at the feet of the Hawks<\/a><\/strong> and even the accused. However analysts say that the public at large should have confidence in the NPA, and with Abrahams at the helm, it cannot shake the image of being &#8216;politically influenced&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2016\/11\/01\/Des-says-he-was-conned\">Des &#8220;Four-day&#8221; van Rooyen says that former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela duped him into withdrawing his initial application for an interdict to block her report into state capture from being released <\/a><\/strong>&#8211; saying that she lulled him into a false sense of security by assuring him that the report did not make any adverse findings against him. After van Rooyen withdrew the application, the Sunday Times published information implicating him in a state capture conspiracy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/2-november-march-goes-ahead-as-anti-state-capture-protest\">The march to show support for Gordhan on what was to be his court date is still on, and will move ahead as a march against state capture,\u00a0lobby group Save South Africa said<\/a><\/strong>. The group\u00a0has encouraged all citizens to join in on the protest, saying that the dropping of the charges against Gordhan will be a rallying victory cry to start things off &#8211; however, the fight against corruption and looting of the state is a bigger fight than just keeping the finance minister out of jail.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2016\/11\/01\/You-cant-study-at-the-barrel-of-a-gun\">A group of students have approached the High Court to get Wits university to postpone exams by two weeks or January 2017, to give students more time to study and prepare.<\/a><\/strong> The group says that because of protest action, lecturers are rushing through coursework, and students haven&#8217;t had enough time to prepare for their exams &#8211; while many have been traumatised by the violence on campus perpetuated by the police.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand neared a five-week high and banking stocks rallied on Monday after the state prosecutor dropped fraud charges against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, easing concerns about his possible removal. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencycharts\/?from=USD&amp;to=ZAR\">On Tuesday, the rand was trading at R13.48 to the dollar, R16.49 to the pound and R14.79 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that the charges against Gordhan have been dropped &#8211; those responsible are playing the blame game; Des van Rooyen is accusing former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela of tricking him into pulling his interdict application; and students want the High Court to force Wits to postpone exams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":106879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-141897","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\/141897","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=141897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141899,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141897\/revisions\/141899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}