{"id":198664,"date":"2017-09-14T07:57:44","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T05:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=198664"},"modified":"2017-09-14T07:57:44","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T05:57:44","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-144","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/198664\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-144\/","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>While Eskom contractors, Gupta-linked Trillian and US-based McKinsey, managed to suck out R1.6 billion from the power utility,<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2017-09-14-scorpio-amabhungane-how-mckinsey-and-trillian-ripped-r1.6bn-from-eskom-and-planned-to-take-r7.8bn-more\/#.WboVuXcjFTY\"> the groups had a big plan to get hold of R9.4 billion in total<\/a><\/strong>. The latest from Scorpio and amaBhungane details exactly how the two companies planned to extract billions from Eskom through consulting contracts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/economy\/2017-09-14-sa-has-six-months-to-a-year-to-get-it-right\/\">South Africa has a very limited time &#8211; 6 months to a year &#8211; to get its politics back into shape, according to Investec Asset Management director Jeremy Gardiner<\/a><\/strong>, or else it will suffer. The director said that the country has already done nothing with the global economic conditions which are currently favouring emerging markets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-09-13\/zuma-s-fight-to-avoid-trial-goes-to-south-africa-s-appeals-court\">P<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-09-13\/zuma-s-fight-to-avoid-trial-goes-to-south-africa-s-appeals-court\">resident Jacob Zuma&#8217;s fight to not have his day in court to face almost 800 charges of corruption and fraud will be heard in the Supreme Court of Appeals today. <\/a><\/strong>The High Court previously ruled that the decision to drop all the charges against him was irrational. The biggest opponent to Zuma&#8217;s challenge of the ruling is the DA, who wants him to face all charges.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Amid worries that the current political climate in South Africa could lead to the ANC&#8217;s elective conference could be delayed or called off,<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/city-press.news24.com\/News\/anc-leaders-will-step-in-to-prevent-elective-conference-collapse-mkhize-20170913\"> the party&#8217;s treasurer general Zweli Mkhize says that senior leadership will ensure that it goes ahead as planned. <\/a><\/strong>Mkhize said that main issue was divisions in the party on a provincial level, which will need to be addressed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand slipped to its weakest in three weeks on Wednesday as traders opted to bank small profits from the currency&#8217;s dip below a crucial technical mark with creeping concerns about credit downgrades souring sentiment. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was at R13.14 to the dollar, R17.36 to the pound and R15.60 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New report shows how Trillian and McKinsey wanted to extract R9.4 billion from Eskom; South Africa has 6 to 12 months to sort itself out before things get much worse; Zuma is in court today in hopes he can shed 783 corruption charges; and the ANC&#8217;s senior leadership assures that the elective conference will not collapse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":72374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198664","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=198664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198676,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198664\/revisions\/198676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}