{"id":152259,"date":"2017-01-24T07:53:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T05:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=152259"},"modified":"2017-01-24T07:53:17","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T05:53:17","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-121","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/152259\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-121\/","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.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2017-01-24-firms-cut-off-oakbay-on-call-by-gordhan\/\">The Guptas&#8217; investment company Oakbay Investments alleges that 24 South African companies cut off all business ties with the group on the order of finance minister Pravin Gordhan<\/a><\/strong>. In an affidavit submitted in response to court action brought by Gordhan, the company did not provide any evidence of the claim, citing only unnamed sources. Gordhan is expected to respond to the Oakbay affidavit on Friday.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/politics\/hlaudis-quotas-and-policies-to-remain-7489370\">Controversial SABC executive Hlaudi Motsoeneng&#8217;s changes and quotas at the public broadcaster will remain intact, the group has said<\/a><\/strong>. Despite him no longer playing the role of COO, his local content policies of 90% local music on the radio and 80% local content on TV will continue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/transport-and-tourism\/2017-01-24-sanral-girds-for-legal-battle-with-motorists\/\">Sanral is preparing to send out 6,286 summonses to recover R6.2 billion in owed e-toll fees, while also gearing up to face Outa in court with a test case, which will set a legal precedent on how the matter will be handled in the future<\/a><\/strong>. Sanral has R38 billion in debt which it is struggling to service due to low user buy-in to its electronic tolling system in Gauteng.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/01\/24\/interest-rate-expected-to-remain-steady\">The Reserve Bank&#8217;s Monetary Policy Committee will sit on Tuesday, with analyst expectations that there will be no changes to the rates<\/a><\/strong>. The prime lending rate is expected to remain at 10.5% and the repo rate unchanged at 7.0%; however inflation is expected to be at the top of the agenda, economists say, with the group being mindful of international developments which will impact the local currency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand and stocks rallied on Monday as emerging markets were helped by buoyant commodity prices and as uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump&#8217;s fiscal policies hit the dollar. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday the rand was trading at R13.44 to the dollar, R16.81 to the pound and R14.45 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Guptas accuse Gordhan of ordering SA companies to drop them; Sanral prepares to send out thousands of summonses to e-toll dodgers; the SABC won&#8217;t change Hlaudi&#8217;s policies; and the Reserve Bank will make a rate announcement, with no changes expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":115414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-152259","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\/152259","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=152259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152265,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152259\/revisions\/152265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}