{"id":186579,"date":"2017-07-20T08:11:02","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T06:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=186579"},"modified":"2017-07-20T08:11:02","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T06:11:02","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-105","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/186579\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-105\/","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>Despite attempts to paint a rosy picture over its financial results, Eskom could not escape the dark clouds &#8211; specifically,<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/the-dark-part-of-eskom-financial-report-revealed-10378355\"> admitting for the first time that it paid R495 million to Trillian, the Gupta-linked company which has been implicated in funneling funds from SOEs to the Guptas<\/a><\/strong>. Acting Eskom CEO John Dladla admitted that the utility was asked to pay Trillian directly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.za\/2017\/07\/20\/zwane-halts-mining-transactions_a_23038690\/?utm_hp_ref=za-homepage\">Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane has frozen all mining applications in South Africa, in what critics are calling the latest bid to hold the mining industry to ransom<\/a><\/strong>. A new regulation, gazetted on Wednesday, also puts restrictions on the transfer of mineral rights between companies. Experts say Zwane is trying to find away around the agreement last week to suspend the controversial mining charter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/retail-and-consumer\/2017-07-20-no-bonuses-for-pick-n-pay-executives\/\">As executive pay comes under fire, Pick n Pay&#8217;s remuneration committee is setting a tough standard &#8211; choosing to not pay out any short-term bonuses to its executives<\/a><\/strong> in its most recent financial year, on the back of poor turnover growth and missing targets. Analysts say that withholding bonuses in cases where performance has fallen short is appropriate. However, PnP did pay discretionary bonuses to certain employees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/city-press.news24.com\/News\/mahumapelo-defends-guptas-says-there-is-no-such-thing-as-state-capture-20170719\">North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo, part of president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s &#8216;premier league&#8217;, says that state capture does not exist<\/a><\/strong>, and that all the talk of such should just be referred to as &#8216;allegations of corruption&#8217;. He said that the campaign against the Guptas could be seen as an &#8216;anti-Indian&#8217; crusade, and until such time they are found guilty in a court of law, he will not distances himself from them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand retreated on Wednesday despite better than anticipated inflation and retail figures, as some investors booked recent profits ahead of an interest rate decision on Thursday. Stocks firmed as platinum miners lifted the bourse. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was trading at R12.96 to the dollar, R16.89 to the pound and R14.92 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mining minister Zwane holds the mining sector to ransom by freezing all new mining applications; Eskom admits it paid Gupta-linked Trillian R500 million; Pick n Pay takes a hard line on executive pay, cutting bonuses for poor performance; and pro-Zuma premier Supra Mahumapelo says &#8216;state capture&#8217; isn&#8217;t a thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":141863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-186579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186579","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=186579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186603,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186579\/revisions\/186603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}