Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n
Analysts believe that next week will prove the most decisive in Jacob Zuma’s political career.<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Sources told CNBC Africa that officials of the ruling African National Congress are meeting with president Zuma to try to negotiate a swift and dignified exit or face being ousted in parliament on live TV.<\/p>\n The Department of Education has released the matric results for 2017, with the\u00a075.1% pass rate showing a steady improvement over previous years.<\/a> <\/strong>However a number of opposition political parties have pointed to flaws in the high percentage citing noticeable drops in a number of provinces, the quality of education, and the\u00a0\u2018real\u2019 pass rate considering how many students drop out leading up to Grade 12.<\/p>\n It’s D-Day for Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille who will now have to provide reasons as to why she should not resign.<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0De Lille was suspended from all party activities in mid-December after a report by a subcommittee, headed by DA chief whip John Steenhuisen, was adopted by the DA’s federal council. It is believed that findings in the report include serious allegations of maladministration by de Lille.<\/p>\n Investors have climbed back into Steinhoff with the company’s share price rising by 32.02% on the JSE on Thursday after it was reported that the embattled group managed to raise a \u00a3180\u202fmillion (R3.02\u202fbillion) loan facility through its subsidiary Pepkor Europe.<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0The loan facility is said to be provided by US investment firm Davidson Kempner and will help to bring stability for its retail brands, according to Pepkor Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n South Africa’s rand firmed on Thursday, recovering earlier losses on bets that new political leaders will support economic reform after strong data from the United States had dampened sentiment.\u00a0On Friday, the rand was trading at R12.30 to the dollar, R16.69 to the pound and R14.85<\/a><\/strong> to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zuma will have the option between a dignified exit or being humiliated on live tv according to a new report; the flaws in the matric marks are showing say opposition parties; its D-Day for Patricia de Lille; and here’s why investors climbed back into Steinhoff yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":114834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-217907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217907","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=217907"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217957,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217907\/revisions\/217957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}