{"id":164495,"date":"2017-03-15T07:56:24","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T05:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=164495"},"modified":"2017-03-15T09:03:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T07:03:14","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/164495\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-26\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening 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.702.co.za\/articles\/248305\/if-we-don-t-get-a-deal-by-wednesday-no-grants-will-be-paid\">Net1 CPS is holding a proverbial gun to South Africa&#8217;s head, dishing out an ultimatum that grants will not be paid to 17 million people on April 1st, unless it has a contract signed by today<\/a><\/strong>. The group effectively said that it is the only hope for grants to be paid, as trying to do so through the Post Office will definitely fail. CPS wants a new three year contract, with a price hike attached.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/03\/15\/gordhan-still-time-to-meet-1-april-grant-deadline\">Finance minister Pravin Gordhan meanwhile disagrees with CPS&#8217; claims, saying that there is still time to ensure that Sassa grants reach the people before next month&#8217;s deadline<\/a><\/strong>. According to the ministers, National Treasury only needs three days notice to transfer funds, so CPS&#8217; deadline is false.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/politics\/articles\/2017-03-14\/south-african-banks-on-offensive-to-parry-political-attacks\">South Africa&#8217;s banks have hit back at government&#8217;s criticism saying that they neglect the poor black people of the country, by pointing out that they have made huge strides in financing that particular group<\/a><\/strong>. The banks pointed out that they have exceeded the transformation targets set by the government, and have planned to boost finance for the poor and black businesses by R100 billion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/local\/2017\/03\/14\/BREAKING-Four-arrests-in-OR-Tambo-airport-heist\">Four men have been arrested &#8211; at least one of which is a police officer &#8211; in connection with the OR Tambo airport heist earlier this month<\/a><\/strong>. Despite progress on the case, the stolen money &#8211; which is in the tens of millions of rands &#8211; has not yet been found. The police have not ruled out that more officers could be involved, but so far only two men have appeared in court on charged of armed robbery.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand was little changed in early trade on Tuesday, with a U.S. rate hike expected this week priced into the market, while investors awaited domestic manufacturing data for fresh clues on the state of the economy. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was trading at R13.14 to the dollar, R15.98 to the pound and R13.95 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CPS is threatening South Africa, saying it has until today to sign a new contract, or else it won&#8217;t be able to pay 17 million social grants; finance minister Pravin Gordhan disagrees; SA banks are biting back at claims they&#8217;re untransformed; and four arrests have been made in the OR Tambo heist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":164061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-164495","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\/164495","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=164495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164509,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164495\/revisions\/164509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}