{"id":179383,"date":"2017-06-15T07:47:58","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T05:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=179383"},"modified":"2017-06-15T07:47:58","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T05:47:58","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-81","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/179383\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-81\/","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:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N1JB6A5\">The office of the Public Protector has announced that it will launch another investigation into claims of state capture at Eskom, Transnet and Prasa<\/a><\/strong>, after calls for a judicial commission of enquiry have escalated following the leaking of thousands of emails. Until now, new Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has not waded into the state capture mess, with little done to follow up on her predecessor&#8217;s State of Capture report, which called for urgent action.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.za\/2017\/06\/15\/here-are-some-of-the-routes-to-avoid-during-the-taxi-strike_a_22234036\/?utm_hp_ref=za-homepage\">A taxi strike in Gauteng is causing chaos on the roads, as many commuters are being blocked from accessing main routes, and workers have been left stranded, unable to get a taxi to work.<\/a><\/strong> The taxis are striking over financial concerns, particularly high interest rates which are pushing taxi drivers into debt, or causing them to default and be blacklisted and having their taxis taken away. Santaco has said that no taxis will be running today as drivers strike.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/special-features\/zuma\/ben-ngubane-defends-zuma-guptas-9797255\">Former Eskom chairman Ben Ngubane is firmly team Gupta and team Zuma, saying that he and former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe have been targetted because of their proximity to the controversial family<\/a><\/strong>. Ngubane admitted that he had been on business trips with the Guptas, but added he had been on many business trips with many people. He also said he was friends with president Zuma &#8211; which is also not strange. Ngubane and Molefe have been accused of using their positions in SOEs to score lucrative contracts for the Guptas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-06-14\/south-africa-mines-refuse-government-meeting-as-new-rules-near\">The South African Chamber of Mines, which represents some of the biggest companies in the sector has said &#8216;no thanks&#8217; to a last minute attempt by mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane to hold a meeting with the industry before releasing new, stricter regulations<\/a><\/strong>. The mining regulations will push for as much as 30% of all mining assets to be black-owned. The mining body said that the minister did not properly consult with the industry and won&#8217;t be co-opted into being party to it now.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand gained on Wednesday as the dollar fell after the United States reported weaker-than-expected inflation and retail sales data. Stocks ended lower as mobile phone operator MTN slid to a four-month low. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was trading at R12.63 to the dollar, R16.14 to the pound and R14.18 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Public Protector will launch another investigation into state capture at Eskom, Transnet and Prasa; taxi strikes are causing traffic chaos in and around Joburg and Pretoria; former Eskom chair Ben Ngubane is 100% team Zuma and team Gupta, and feels like he has been targeted unfairly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":140899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-179383","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\/179383","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=179383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179391,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179383\/revisions\/179391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}