{"id":173325,"date":"2017-05-04T07:48:23","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T05:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=173325"},"modified":"2017-05-04T07:48:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T05:48:23","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/173325\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-51\/","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.huffingtonpost.co.za\/2017\/05\/04\/gigaba-transformation-not-equal-to-corruption_a_22068222\/?utm_hp_ref=za-homepage\">Finance minister Malusi Gigaba is on the right path to calming businesses and investors who are nervous about the recent changes to South Africa&#8217;s financial directors.<\/a><\/strong> Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Durban yesterday, the new finance minister appeared to successfully quell some fears around &#8216;radical economic transformation&#8217; &#8211; simply by not mentioning it in his address around how to invigorate growth in South Africa. He also stuck to the notes left behind by Pravin Gordhan in his 2017 budget.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/SouthAfrica\/News\/cosatu-singing-the-same-tune-as-our-enemies-maphatsoe-20170504\">MK Military Veterans Association chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe says that Cosatu is singing the same tune as &#8220;the enemy&#8221; and that it is a problem, bringing doubt as to whether the worker&#8217;s federation is on board with &#8220;the revolution&#8221;<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0Maphatsoe said that Cosatu should rather just keep quiet and not get involved with the ANC&#8217;s politics. Cosatu joined the calls for president Jacob Zuma to step down, and members booed him when he tried to address them at a Worker&#8217;s Day rally.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/2017-05-04-e-toll-defaulters-threaten-future-of-roads-agency-says-ceo\/\">Gauteng residents who don&#8217;t pay their e-tolls are threatening the entire national road network, according to Sanral\u00a0CEO Skhumbuzo Macozoma <\/a><\/strong>&#8211; as the non-payment of e-toll bills is having a devastating effect on the agency&#8217;s coffers, and ability to raise further capital. Macozoma said that Sanral is likely to miss its financial targets, and will also probably have to delay another bond assurance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/254676\/mashaba-vote-me-out-if-joburg-hasn-t-grown-by-5-in-2021\">Joburg city mayor Herman Mashaba says South Africans must vote him out of office if he fails to hit his target of 5% growth in the City of Joburg by 2021. <\/a><\/strong>The DA mayor said that to overcome the many challenges Joburg faces, there is no other option but to accelerate growth &#8211; and a minimum of 5% is needed. &#8220;If we cannot get 5%, we have failed&#8221; he said. In his first council address as mayor, Mashaba highlighted the challenges and also the successes his team has faced since taking over from the ANC.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand was flat against the dollar on Wednesday, as some investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve&#8217;s policy decision.\u00a0Wall Street ended slightly lower on Wednesday after the Fed\u00a0held interest rates unchanged and investors digested another heavy round of earnings reports. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday, the rand slipped against major currencies, trading at R13.45 to the dollar, R17.31 to the pound and R14.65 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finance minister Malusi Gigaba tries to quell fears at the WEF &#8211; with moderate success; more ANC infighting as the MK vets lash out at Cosatu; e-toll defaulters are putting Sanral and the entire SA road network at risk, its CEO says; and Joburg mayor Mashaba invites you to get rid of him if he fails to hit his targets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":52621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-173325","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\/173325","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=173325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173327,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173325\/revisions\/173327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}