{"id":207009,"date":"2017-10-24T08:03:51","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T06:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=207009"},"modified":"2017-10-24T08:03:51","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T06:03:51","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-170","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/207009\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-170\/","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>A new poll run by\u00a0Markdata and African Response in 16 focus groups in the ANC&#8217;s four biggest provinces, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/poll-shows-ramaphosa-leading-the-the-race\">showing that deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa is by far the most popular choice for the next leader of the party.<\/a><\/strong> Respondents believe Ramaphosa is\u00a0competent and not easily corruptible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Damages caused by the recent storms in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal are expected to cost insurers hundreds of millions of rands, if not <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/industry\/insurance-industry-faces-r1-billion-in-storm-damages\/\">shooting past the R1 billion mark<\/a><\/strong>. Damages in eThekwini alone have <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/2017-10-24-storm-damage-hits--r500m\/\">already reached R500 million<\/a><\/strong>, with insurers pointing out that the damage in Joburg was far greater.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/energy\/2017-10-24-brian-molefe-i-was-a-permanent-employee\/\">Disgraced former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe insists that he was a permanent employee of the power utility<\/a><\/strong>, as his contract had no restrictions on his term of employment, thus making his retirement payout legit. Eskom wanted to pay Molefe R30.1 million for 15 months of work, having &#8216;bought&#8217; 13 years of his service upon his retrenchment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/10\/24\/nzimande-zuma-single-biggest-problem-in-anc-alliance-and-sa\">SACP secretary general Blade Nzimande is not mincing his words, calling president Jacob Zuma the single biggest threat to the ANC, the tripartite alliance and South Africa as a whole<\/a><\/strong>. Nzimande and the SACP, along with Cosatu, are leading the calls for Zuma to be recalled for his role in state capture.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand held its ground on Monday, weakening only slightly against a surging dollar as concerns over further cabinet reshuffles eased and attention shifted to this week&#8217;s budget speech. Stocks inched up on the day<strong>.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\"> On Tuesday the rand was at R13.71 to the dollar, R18.11 to the pound and R16.12 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New poll shows Ramaphosa is the ANC electorate&#8217;s top choice; damages from South Africa&#8217;s mega storms could reach over R1 billion; disgraced former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe insists he was a permanent employee and deserved his R30.1 million payout; and Blade Nzimande says Zuma is the single biggest threat to the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":103707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207009","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\/207009","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=207009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207043,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207009\/revisions\/207043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}