{"id":198948,"date":"2017-09-15T07:49:02","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T05:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=198948"},"modified":"2017-09-15T07:49:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T05:49:02","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-145","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/198948\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-145\/","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\/national\/2017-09-15-public-protector-met-spies-twice-on-bank-absa-affidavit-reveals\/\">Absa has joined the Reserve Bank in accusations that the Public Protector met with the state spy agency to discuss and question the independence of the central bank<\/a><\/strong> before issuing her findings on the CIEX report. In court papers, Absa says protector Mkhwebane met with the SSA not once, but twice. She recommended a case of apartheid looting against Absa be reopened.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>President Jacob Zuma&#8217;s legal team made a startling concession in his court case to get 783 charges of corruption dropped &#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2017-09-15-after-8-years-and-r30m-zuma-wants-another-chance-to-explain\/\">they admitted that the decision by the NPA to drop the charges was irrational<\/a><\/strong>. While seen as a victory by his opponents, many analysts suspect that the beleaguered president may still have tricks up his sleeve.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/economy\/sas-current-account-deficit-widens-11221999\">Data released by Stats SA shows that South Africa&#8217;s current account deficit has widened to 2.4% of GDP (from 2% last quarter), representing a\u00a0R110.5 billion gap<\/a><\/strong>. While economists expected the data to reflect a narrowing of the deficit, they noted that in the big picture, things were far better than they were 18 months ago.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/11-months-later-nersa-postpones-ipp-investigation\/\">Eskom has once again delayed the process of signing on independent power producers, after Nersa investigations into the power utility&#8217;s failure to approve new contracts was postponed <\/a><\/strong>by two weeks, after Eskom cited &#8220;communication challenges&#8221; for the delay. It has been almost a year since IPPs complained about Eskom&#8217;s refusal to approve the programme.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand eased on Thursday to three-week lows after data showed the current account deficit widened in the second quarter, while mining shares weighed on the bourse. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was trading at R13.12 to the dollar, R17.60 to the pound and R15.63 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Absa joins the Reserve Bank in accusing the Public Protector of meeting with state spies; Zuma&#8217;s legal team admits that it was irrational for 783 charges of corruption agains him to be dropped; SA&#8217;s current account deficit has widened; and a year later, the fight between Eskom and IPPs still hasn&#8217;t been resolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":53025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198948","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\/198948","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=198948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198966,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198948\/revisions\/198966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}