{"id":154773,"date":"2017-02-03T08:15:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T06:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=154773"},"modified":"2017-02-03T08:15:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T06:15:33","slug":"5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-129","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/154773\/5-things-you-need-to-know-in-south-africa-today-129\/","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\/companies\/financial-services\/2017-02-03-bank-of-china-closes-accounts-of-gupta-linked-firm\/\">The Bank of China in South Africa is the latest bank to shut down accounts linked to Gupta businesses, on the basis of political and reputational concerns<\/a><\/strong>. In court papers filed by VR Laser &#8211; a Gupta-owned firm &#8211; the bank demanded that the group get rid of all of its Gupta shareholders, citing political risks. The company&#8217;s accounts were closed three weeks after they were opened.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/243491\/we-re-going-to-see-a-lot-of-wrong-being-done-in-our-name-as-black-people-lumkile-mondi\">If finance minister Pravin Gordhan is axed in a speculated cabinet reshuffle, the consequences will be dire, analysts warn<\/a><\/strong>. The rand will tank and ratings agencies will immediately cut South Africa to junk status &#8211; but worse yet, in the longer term, there will be a mass exodus of talented, honourable people from the National Treasury, leaving it open to abuse from cronies and cadre deployments for years to come.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2017\/02\/03\/Tight-security-for-JZs-speech-Cape-Town-streets-closed-for-two-days-before-Sona\">Security will be tight at president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s state of the nation address being held next week, with streets around Cape Town&#8217;s parliamentary district being closed off two days ahead of the event<\/a><\/strong>. Security will move to block expected protests and disruptions from the EFF, which have occurred in prior years.\u00a0Secretary to parliament Gengezi Mgidlana assured that cellphone signals won&#8217;t be blocked, and footage will not be cut, as was seen in previous years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/opinion\/budget2017-expect-to-pay-more-tax-7591516\">Tax, tax and more tax &#8211; that&#8217;s what South Africans can expect to come out of the finance minister&#8217;s Budget Speech being held later this month<\/a><\/strong>. Finmin Pravin Gordhan indicatedin late 2016\u00a0that there would be tax increases of R13 billion in 2017, and a\u00a0further tax increase of R15 billion in 2018. Taxes are seen as the &#8216;easy&#8217; route to hitting these targets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand hit a one-week high on Thursday, boosted by a rally in commodity prices and a weaker dollar after the U.S. Federal Reserve&#8217;s policy statement. Stocks fell as the rand hedges came under pressure from the stronger currency. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday, the rand was trading at R13.39 to the dollar, R16.77 to the pound and R14.41 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another bank in South Africa refuses to do business with the Guptas; if Pravin Gordhan gets the chop in a cabinet reshuffle, expect things to go from bad to worse, analysts say; security is going to be tighter at this year&#8217;s SONA; and tax is the name of the game for Budget 2017.<\/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-154773","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\/154773","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=154773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154787,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154773\/revisions\/154787"}],"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=154773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}