{"id":151987,"date":"2017-01-23T08:07:41","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T06:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=151987"},"modified":"2017-01-23T08:07:41","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T06:07:41","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-120","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/151987\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-120\/","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.iol.co.za\/business-report\/companies\/guptas-gordhan-claims-sensational-and-politically-driven-7467990\">The National Treasury says that the Gupta family&#8217;s claims that finance minister Pravin Gordhan is engaging in a political war with the aim of ruining their businesses is sensational and politically-driven<\/a><\/strong>, and trying to distract from the core point of the minister&#8217;s court action. Treasury noted that the Guptas&#8217; statement conceded that it could not contest the case raised by Gordhan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/01\/23\/fake-news-sites-a-weapon-used-by-political-role-players\">A spate of new fake news accounts have emerged on social media, mimicking the names and designs of popular South African news groups, while pushing quotes and stories that promote a specific agenda<\/a><\/strong>. Spoof accounts for Radio 702, The Sunday Times and The Huffington Post were set up on the weekend, and published anti-Gordhan posts. Political parties or politically-linked individuals are said to be behind the accounts, due to their specific agendas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/SouthAfrica\/News\/commission-of-enquiry-into-guptas-and-eskom-20170122\">Public enterprises minister Lynne Brown has called for a commission of enquiry into the Gupta family&#8217;s business dealings with Eskom, making her the first cabinet minister to endorse the commission<\/a><\/strong> which was first recommended by former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela in her state capture report. Brown herself was implicated in the report, which found that there were questionable processes followed in appointing the Gupta-owned Tegeta to do business with Eskom.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/media\/2017-01-23-mps-mull-whether-report-should-recommend-that-faith--muthambi-be-fired\/\">Firing communications minister Faith Muthambi is one of the recommendations being considered by the ad hoc committee investigating the SABC<\/a><\/strong>. Among the recommendations being considered is the call for a new SABC board to be appointed which is apolitical. A leaked draft of the recommendations found that Muthambi had interfered with the goings-on at the public broadcaster, but until the final report is released in February, it remains unclear what action, if any, will be recommended.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand and stocks drifted weaker on Friday as appetite for riskier assets wavered ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump&#8217;s inauguration.\u00a0The dollar slipped broadly on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump struck a protectionist tone in his inauguration speech, offsetting optimism that he will follow through on promises of tax cuts and other stimulus. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Monday, the rand was trading at R13.49 to the dollar, R16.76 to the pound and R14.50 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Treasury hits back at the Guptas&#8217; claims that finance minister Pravin Gordhan is trying to ruin them; fake news accounts hit SA social media &#8211; and political groups may be behind it; and public enterprises minister Lynne Brown wants the Gupta-Eskom relationship investigated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":139895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-151987","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\/151987","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=151987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151993,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151987\/revisions\/151993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}