{"id":169409,"date":"2017-04-10T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T06:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=169409"},"modified":"2017-04-10T08:00:17","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T06:00:17","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-43","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/169409\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-43\/","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=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2017-04-10-downgrades-may-bring-on-recession-anc-concedes\/\">After some careful consideration, the ANC has now realised that a junk rating for South Africa means a recession could be on the way. <\/a><\/strong>The party has conceded that it still does not fully understand what the impact of the downgrades &#8211; both of which occurred last week &#8211; will have on the wider South African economy. The party called for all South Africans to &#8216;come together&#8217; to get through it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/politics\/comrades-stop-embarrassing-anc---mkhize-8570496\">The ANC Youth League this week defied a court order saying they could attend &#8211; but not disrupt &#8211; a memorial service being held to honour late ANC stalwart, Ahmed Kathrada.<\/a><\/strong> The ANCYL showed up in numbers, and heckled former finance minister Pravin Gordhan during his address, and refused to be quietened by ANC treasurer general Zweli Mkhize. The memorial service was cut short as the league continued to harass attendees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/thetimes\/2017\/04\/10\/Misgivings-in-ANC-on-nuclear-plans1\">Some in government are concerned about South Africa&#8217;s nuclear plans, which are reportedly set to kick off in June &#8211; following ratings downgrades to junk this past week, some officials are saying the entire build needs a &#8216;rethink&#8217;<\/a><\/strong>. The nuclear build is expected to cost around R1 trillion, and is said to be one of the key reasons by former finance minister Gordhan lost his job, as he was blocking Treasury funds to move ahead with the plan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/04\/10\/wc-and-gp-cops-to-beef-up-operations-ahead-of-easter\">The police will be out in force this week in major metros to clamp down on road traffic offences leading up to and during the Easter weekend.<\/a><\/strong> Easter is one of the most dangerous times to be on the roads in the country, and the SAPS are determined to keep crime levels and road deaths low. High visibility campaigns are expected to be in effect throughout the period.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand slipped on Friday after a second ratings agency, Fitch, downgraded the country&#8217;s credit status to &#8220;junk&#8221; on economic uncertainty after last week&#8217;s sacking of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\"> On Monday the rand was trading at R13.81 to the dollar, R17.11 to the pound and R14.62 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ANC admits a recession may be on the way; the ANC Youth League have defied a court order and disrupted Ahmed Kathrada&#8217;s memorial service; government&#8217;s R1 trillion nuclear plans need a rethink, some officials say; and the police are gearing up to make Easter travels safer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":95131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-169409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169409","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=169409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169429,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169409\/revisions\/169429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}