{"id":219985,"date":"2018-01-19T07:44:02","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T05:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=219985"},"modified":"2018-01-19T07:44:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T05:44:02","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-225","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/219985\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-225\/","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.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2018-01-18-i-am-the-only-president-of-the-country-zuma-tells-court\/\">President Jacob Zuma has launched a fight back against a court ruling saying that he is too compromised to appoint the head of the National Prosecuting Authority.<\/a><\/strong> In papers filed on Thursday, Zuma said he was the only president of the country, and it was his constitutional power to appoint the national director of public prosecutions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/africaTech\/idAFL8N1PD4GM\">Embattled retail group Steinhoff has been given a brief reprieve after it secured backing from lenders to prop up its finances and operations in Europe over the short term.<\/a><\/strong> The group received a first instalment of 60 million euros out of 200 million, which will be used to meet business critical payments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Eskom&#8217;s disgraced CFO Anoj Singh was responsible for reportedly signing a &#8216;secret&#8217; deal which would <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/energy\/2018-01-19-anoj-singh-signed-secret-r400m-raising-fee-at-eskom\/\">force the cash-strapped power utility to pay R400 million to an &#8216;obscure offshore entity&#8217; which assisted in raising loans in China<\/a><\/strong>. Eskom&#8217;s legal division suspects it could be a kickback.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Residents in the City of Cape Town have successfully managed to shift the city council&#8217;s plans to implement a &#8216;drought levy&#8217;, which would force residents to pay extra monthly fee to help curb the ongoing water crisis. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/01\/19\/cape-town-residents-pour-cold-water-on-proposed-drought-levy\">The plan is expected to be officially scrapped on Friday, though punitive charges may be formally introduced along with level 6B restrictions.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand scaled a two and a half year high against a broadly fragile dollar on Thursday, climbing more than 1% after the central bank held interest rates steady and the new head of the ruling ANC ramped up his tough talk on graft. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was at R12.11 to the dollar, R16.85 to the pound and R14.85 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zuma says only he has the right to appoint the head of the NPA; Steinhoff gets a breather after securing some financial backing to keep operations in Europe afloat; Eskom&#8217;s suspended CFO may have forced the company to pay a R400 million kickback; and no drought tax for Cape Town, but fines and more water restrictions are coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":215195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219985","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\/219985","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=219985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219997,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219985\/revisions\/219997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}