{"id":168037,"date":"2017-04-04T07:44:02","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T05:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=168037"},"modified":"2017-04-04T07:44:02","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T05:44:02","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-39","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/168037\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-39\/","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>South Africa has been downgraded to junk status and the market is really not liking that bit of news. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbcafrica.com\/news\/southern-africa\/2017\/04\/03\/rating-downgrade-risks-triggering-series-economic-setbacks-south-africa-irr\/\">The downgrade is not just a once-off event, economists say, and heralds a slew of long-term knock-on effects that will impact all South Africans negatively for years to come. <\/a><\/strong>From rate hikes, to unemployment, to the overall standard of living for each citizen, economists and analysts warn that tough times lie ahead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Our newly appointed minister of finance Malusi Gigaba and his team at National Treasury have ensured South Africans that they are <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2017\/04\/03\/Gigaba-to-take-tough-unpopular-choices-to-grow-economy\">committed to all the nice things one needs to say to ratings agencies to avoid getting downgraded &#8211; however Gigaba also vaguely stated\u00a0that he will be making many unpopular choices to grow the economy<\/a><\/strong>. He did not elaborate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Former president Kgalema Motlanthe has added his voice to the many other Zuma critics calling for the president to step down. S<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/politics\/articles\/2017-04-03\/zuma-pursues-vested-interests-should-quit-ex-president-says\">peaking to Bloomberg, Motlanthe said that Zuma has broken down trust in the ANC, and that the Constitutional Court ruling against him in the Nkandla saga was evidence he had broken his oath of office.<\/a><\/strong> The former president said he no longer feels as if he is a part of the ANC &#8211; a party now run by &#8216;incorrigible people&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/politics\/2017-04-04-anc-in-crisis-mode-as-it-calls-on-provincial-heads\/\">The ANC has called all of its provincial leaders and secretaries to meet today, to discuss president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s conduct following last week&#8217;s cabinet reshuffle and the firing of finance minister Pravin Gordhan. <\/a><\/strong>While Zuma has faced much criticism around his recent conduct, analysts believe that he still commands majority support across the provinces, with backers in key grassroots provinces.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand fell more than 2 percent on Monday to its weakest in almost three months after S&amp;P Global Ratings cut the country&#8217;s credit score to sub-investment grade with a negative outlook after last week&#8217;s dismissal of the South African finance minister. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday the rand was trading at R13.79 to the dollar, R17.15 to the pound and R14.71 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s ratings downgrade is going to have a domino effect that will continue to wreck the economy; Treasury tries to reassure the nation while the new finance minister continues to be as vague as possible; former president Kgalema Motlanthe wants Zuma to go; and the ANC hits crisis mode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":168039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-168037","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\/168037","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=168037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168041,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168037\/revisions\/168041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}