{"id":196996,"date":"2017-09-07T07:45:16","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T05:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=196996"},"modified":"2017-09-07T07:45:16","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T05:45:16","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-139","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/196996\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-139\/","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:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/09\/07\/mkhize-to-fight-against-graft-restoring-anc-image-if-elected-as-party-leader\">ANC treasurer general Zweli Mkhize has opened himself up for nomination to be the next president of the party (and likely the country)<\/a><\/strong>. Mkhize has long been seen as the ideal &#8216;compromise&#8217; candidate, filling the gap between two extremes seen in Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma. Mkhize wants to fight corruption and restore the image of the ANC.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/271508\/business-confidence-in-sa-at-lowest-point-in-32-years\">Business confidence in South Africa has hit its lowest point in 32 years, according to the Sacci monthly business confidence index (BCI)<\/a><\/strong>. Sacci said that sentiment in the country is extremely negative, and the data shows that confidence levels are well below even when the world was in a global economic crisis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/investing\/property\/its-time-for-metros-to-pay-back-the-money\/\">South African home owners who were forced to pay off the municipal debts of those who previously owned their property, are now looking for ways to get a refund from the municipalities in question<\/a><\/strong>. A recent Constitutional Court ruling found that new owners are not liable for previous owners&#8217; debts. Debt specialists are now leading the charge to get money back on behalf of clients.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbcafrica.com\/news\/2017\/09\/06\/south-africas-shoprite-fined-reckless-lending-regulator\/\">The country&#8217;s largest retailer, Shoprite, has been fined R1 million for reckless lending practices<\/a><\/strong>. According to the\u00a0National Consumer Tribunal, Shoprite failed to\u00a0assess properly whether consumers could afford its loans. It has been ordered to pay the fine, and also appoint a debt counselor at its own cost.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand rallied to its firmest in two-and-a-half months on Wednesday as rising tensions between North Korea and United States lifted gold prices, further boosting a local currency buoyant after the economy shook off recession. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was at R12.81 to the dollar, R16.72 to the pound and R15.28 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ANC treasurer general Zweli Mkhize says he&#8217;s ready for nominations to be next party president; business confidence in SA hits 32-year lows; home owners launch bid to get money paid to cover previous owner debts back; and Shoprite has been fined R1 million for reckless lending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":135455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196996","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=196996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197010,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196996\/revisions\/197010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}