{"id":220219,"date":"2018-01-22T07:56:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T05:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=220219"},"modified":"2018-01-22T07:56:26","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T05:56:26","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-226","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/220219\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-226\/","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.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/energy\/2018-01-22-treasury-to-approach-banks-in-bid-avert-eskom-default\/\">Eskom&#8217;s new leadership along with National Treasury will work together to approach banks in a bid to avert financial disaster this week.<\/a><\/strong> The embattled power utility needs a reported R20 billion to stay afloat, and has run out of good will in the bond market. There are worries that global finance groups may recall loans, which could force a total recall of Eskom&#8217;s R350 billion in debts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/retail-and-consumer\/2018-01-22-jse-puts-steinhoff-bonds-on-notice\/\">The JSE has warned that Steinhoff&#8217;s bonds could be suspended if the company does not publish its financial results soon<\/a><\/strong>. The company has R6.8 billion in bonds outstanding. According to the JSE&#8217;s rules, a company needs to publish financial statements within four months of the end of its reporting period.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbcafrica.com\/news\/financial\/2018\/01\/19\/aspen-selloff\/\">Aspen CEO Stephen Saad said it could have been Shoprite chair and former Steinhoff director Christo Wiese&#8217;s fault that the pharmaceutical company suffered a share price shock earlier this year<\/a><\/strong>. According to Saad, Wiese&#8217;s selling of 4 to 5 million Aspen shares following the Steinhoff fallout may have caused panic among investors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/dlamini-in-the-hot-seat-at-sassa-inquiry\">Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini will be in the hot seat today over her role in the Sassa grants crisis &#8211; if she shows up.<\/a><\/strong> Dlamini has been accused of purposefully orchestrating the crisis in a bid to extend contracts. She has failed to show up for meetings over the issue several times in the past.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand retreated from a two-and-a-half year high on Friday as a rally driven by a weaker dollar and optimism about the prospects for change under the new leader of theANC ran out of steam. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Monday the rand was trading at R12.10 to the dollar, R16.78 to the pound and R14.80 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom and Treasury are going to work together to try and avert a financial crisis this week; JSE warns Steinhoff that it&#8217;s running out of time to publish its financial results; Aspen CEO says it could be billionaire Christo Wiese&#8217;s fault its shares tanked; and Bathabile Dlamini is in the hot seat today over the Sassa grants crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":72374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220219","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=220219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220231,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220219\/revisions\/220231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}