{"id":213393,"date":"2017-11-28T08:15:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T06:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=213393"},"modified":"2017-11-28T08:15:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T06:15:38","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-195","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/213393\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-195\/","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>The Zuma government wants it all &#8211; the president wants <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/economy\/2017-11-28-zumas-dramatic-budget-rethink-includes-r30bn-tax-hike\/\">additional tax hikes and cuts in government spending<\/a><\/strong> amounting to R25 billion on top of already announced measures to meet a revenue shortfall of R50 billion, all while pushing nuclear energy, national healthcare and free education &#8211; all of which the country simply cannot afford.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Despite plunging deeper into junk status, South Africa is still enjoying investment from undeterred investors, who are\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/commoditiesNews\/idAFL8N1NX3ZL\">choosing to buy its bonds cheap and pocket one of highest yield premiums offered in emerging markets<\/a><\/strong>. South Africa&#8217;s bond are luring in investors as yields approach 10%, despite a full junk status by S&amp;P Global.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Economy\/Eskom\/eskom-promises-not-to-rush-ahead-with-nuclear-20171128-2\">Eskom has promised that it is not rushing ahead with nuclear energy, despite media reports that government was pushing forward and apparently rushing ahead with the project<\/a><\/strong>. The power utility said it was bound by an April court ruling that halted its procurement processes, and despite concerns, it has not violated that court order.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>ANC chair and presidential hopeful Baleka Mbete says that<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2017\/11\/28\/mbete-let-zuma-finish-his-term-with-dignity\"> president Jacob Zuma should be given the chance to finish his presidential term with dignity.<\/a><\/strong> When asked if Zuma was fit to hold office, Mbete said he was the chosen president of the ANC, so to ask if he was fit wasn&#8217;t a logical question.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand recovered on Monday from steep falls suffered late on Friday after S&amp;P Global Ratings downgraded the local currency debt to sub-investment grade, taking some relief from Moody\u2019s decision to only place South Africa on review for downgrade. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday the rand was at R13.77 to the dollar, R18.35 to the pound and R16.39 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zuma pushes more tax hikes and spending cuts &#8211; while government pushes nuclear, national healthcare and free education; investors are still keen on SA despite junk status; Eskom promises it&#8217;s not rushing nuclear energy plans; and Baleka Mbete says Zuma deserved to end his term with dignity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":74538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213393","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=213393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213407,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213393\/revisions\/213407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}