{"id":207733,"date":"2017-10-27T08:02:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T06:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=207733"},"modified":"2017-10-27T08:02:38","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T06:02:38","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-173","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/207733\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-173\/","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>An investigation by News24 has revealed that the Gupta family have at least six companies registered in Dubai which are shell companies that have been used to allegedly launder hundreds of millions. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-admin\/post-new.php\">The report found the companies are registered to fraudulent addresses, and at least R760 million linked to government contracts have passed through them.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-10-26\/the-bond-market-hates-gigaba-s-plan-for-south-africa-s-finances\">Foreign investors have led the biggest sell-off of South African bonds since the European debt crisis of 2011, having sold off R5.1 billion of debt <\/a><\/strong>in the hours following finance minister Malusi Gigaba&#8217;s budget speech this week. Foreigners own 41% of South Africa&#8217;s R1.97 trillion local currency bonds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/markets\/fitch-moves-towards-fiscal-consolidation-11732858\">Global ratings firm Fitch has not reacted well to this week&#8217;s budget speech, saying finance minister Malusi Gigaba was moving away from fiscal consolidation<\/a><\/strong>, which many expected after former minister Pravin Gordhan was given the boot in March. Fitch already has South Africa in full junk status, but many expect further downgrades from the group.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.za\/2017\/10\/26\/mapaila-email-hack-part-of-a-campaign-to-tarnish-his-reputation_a_23255411\/?utm_hp_ref=za-homepage\">More politicians who are vocally against president Jacob Zuma and his government are alleging that their emails and mobile devices are being hacked.<\/a><\/strong> The SACP claims that &#8216;rogue security units&#8217; have attempted to hack\u00a0Solly Mapaila&#8217;s email account to tarnish his name. Earlier, EFF leader Julius Malema claimed that government agencies were trying to access his emails too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand and government bonds remained under pressure on Thursday in a second day of heavy losses sparked by a bleak budget outlined by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba on Wednesday that raised the risk of credit downgrades. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was trading at R14.24 to the dollar, R18.69 to the pound and R16.57 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new investigation lifts the lid on the Guptas&#8217; shell companies in Dubai, and the millions of rands that pass through them; foreign investors led the biggest sell-off of local bonds following Gigaba&#8217;s speech; Fitch is not happy with the budget direction; and anti-Zuma politicians claim the government is trying to hack them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":118588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207733","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\/207733","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=207733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207737,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207733\/revisions\/207737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}