{"id":194768,"date":"2017-08-28T07:46:27","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T05:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=194768"},"modified":"2017-08-28T07:46:27","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T05:46:27","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-131","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/194768\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-131\/","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\/2017-08-28-cancelled-gupta-arms-deal-cost-denel-billions-in-sales\/\">South African state-owned arms firm, Denel has cancelled a contract with the Gupta-owned\u00a0VR Laser Asia, with the SOE confirming the failed deal had cost it dearly<\/a><\/strong>. The deal was called off in the same week that the Gupta family sold off two of its other businesses to close associates in a bid to circumvent a banking blacklist in the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/2017-08-28-naspers-shareholders-vote-against-controversial-remuneration-policy\/\">More than half of Naspers&#8217; shareholders have spoken out against the media giant&#8217;s remuneration policy, and over 60% have voted against giving directors control of unlisted (A) shares<\/a><\/strong>, in an unprecedented move. Shareholders with N shares only control about 32% of the company, while the A shareholders control 68%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/politics\/2017-08-28-sacp-to-tell-anc-it-will-contest-polls-and-wants-zuma-to-go\/\">The ANC&#8217;s alliance with the SACP is on shaky ground, as the latter is expected to inform the ruling party of its intentions to contest future elections as a standing party<\/a><\/strong>, while repeating calls for president Jacob Zuma to step down. The SACP central committee met this past weekend and cemented its plans to run for election outside the ANC.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2017-08-28-19m-could-be-denied-medical-aid-if-governments-plan-to-ditch-tax-credits-succeeds\/\">A new report shows that 22% of South Africans could lose their medical aid due to the schemes becoming unaffordable should a decision to scrap tax credits moves ahead.<\/a><\/strong> Stellenbosch economics consultancy Econex has warned that 1.9 million of 8 million medical aid members would have to drop out of private healthcare.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand firmed on Friday as the dollar fell after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen made no reference to U.S. monetary policy in her speech at a central bankers&#8217; meeting.<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\"> On Monday the rand was trading at R13.06 to the dollar, R16.82 to the pound and R15.57 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Denel has lost big-time from its failed deal with the Guptas; Naspers&#8217; shareholders are fighting back against executive pay at the group; the SACP wants to contest elections without the ANC; and almost 2 million South Africans may have to drop their medical aids if tax credits are scrapped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":91336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194768","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=194768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194780,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194768\/revisions\/194780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}