{"id":177791,"date":"2017-06-06T08:04:02","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T06:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=177791"},"modified":"2017-06-06T08:04:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T06:04:02","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/177791\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-74\/","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\/companies\/energy\/2017-06-05-eskoms-proposed-20-price-hike-will-severely-hurt-municipalities-and-firms\/\">Eskom is seeking a 20% tariff hike when it applies to Nersa for its next round of electricity price adjustments, which, if approved, would spell disaster for consumers and municipalities who are already stretched thin.<\/a><\/strong> Eskom said it would submit its application by the end of June, with the proposed hikes looking to draw in just under R220 billion. Analysts agree that consumers, businesses and municipalities simply cannot afford such a hike.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2017-06-06-guptas-wanted-to-buy-and-reposition-fierce-media-critic-mail-amp-guardian\/\">More information from the Gupta leaks show that at one stage the family wanted to acquire and &#8216;reposition&#8217; the Mail &amp; Guardian, which is one of the family&#8217;s biggest critics. <\/a><\/strong>Emails between former Oakbay CEO Nazeem Howa and Tony Gupta showed that they believed the M&amp;G was trying to unseat president Jacob Zuma. They valued the paper at R20 million.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/markets\/foreigners-continue-to-pull-money-from-the-jse\/\">Foreign investors are continuing to pull money out of South Africa, with net foreign selling hitting a new high in June, as investors sold off R17.4 billion in South African equities<\/a><\/strong>. This beat out the last high of R17.3 billion in March 2017. Cumulatively in 2017, foreigners have been net sellers of R72.4 billion in local equities &#8211; fast approaching the R100 billion-plus pulled from SA markets in the whole of 2016.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/city-press.news24.com\/News\/are-the-guptaleaks-enough-to-prosecute-jz-the-answer-is-no-20170606\">Legal experts have warned that the Gupta email leaks are not enough to seal a solid case against the family or those implicated &#8211; but they do form enough of a base to lay charges and investigate further<\/a><\/strong>. On their own, the emails are damning, but don&#8217;t necessarily prove anything. The Hawks, however, have<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sundaytimes\/stnews\/2017\/06\/05\/Hawks-confirm-inquiry-into-leaked-Gupta-e-mails\"> confirmed<\/a><\/strong> that they are investigating the leaks, which may set up the case needed to take on any wrongdoing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand gained more than one percent on Monday as improved global demand for riskier assets and relief following two credit ratings reprieves lifted the currency close to its firmest in two months. Stocks were flat on the day. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday the rand was trading at R12.73 to the dollar, R16.46 to the pound and R14.36 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom is reportedly seeking a massive 20% hike in tariffs; email leaks show the Guptas wanted to buy the Mail &#038; Guardian; legal experts say the leaked emails aren&#8217;t enough for a done-and-dusted case; and foreign investors continue to pull billions out of South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":87984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,9874,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-177791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-energy","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177791","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=177791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177795,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177791\/revisions\/177795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}