{"id":221051,"date":"2018-01-25T08:05:16","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T06:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=221051"},"modified":"2018-01-25T08:05:16","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T06:05:16","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-229","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/221051\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-229\/","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\/2018-01-25-eskom-makes-a-u-turn-on-r1bn-payment-to-mckinsey\/\">Eskom has done a complete 180 on its statement that its contracts with consultancy McKinsey and the Gupta-linked Trillian were unlawful and invalid<\/a> <\/strong>&#8211; but it still wants the groups to pay back the R1.6 billion though. The move appears to be the power utility attempting to remove criminal liability, following the NPA&#8217;s move to treat the payments as criminal activity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/africaTech\/idAFL8N1PJ0VL\">Finance minister Malusi Gigaba says South Africa needs to prepare itself for a tough budget this year<\/a><\/strong>, where difficult decisions have to be made to\u00a0stabilise the country\u2019s debt issues and implement interventions to boost the economy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2018-01-24-zille-police-army-will-help-secure-day-zero-water-distribution-points\"><strong>Western Cape premier Helen Zille says that if Cape Town&#8217;s day zero happens &#8211; which is looking more likely by the day &#8211; the plan is to get the SAPS and the national army into the city to monitor<\/strong> <strong>water distribution points across the region<\/strong><\/a><strong>.<\/strong> 4000 people are expected to line up every day at the 200 distribution points, and security concerns have are at the top of many minds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Following the recent trends of officials and leaders shrugging off responsibility for the many scandals that have hit state-run companies,<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/eskoms-koko-implicates-colleagues-maintains-innocence\">Eskom executive Matshela Koko has denied his role in any wrongdoing at the group, passing the blame onto others, or claiming he does not remember<\/a><\/strong>. Koko says other testimonies implicating him in corrupt activity is false.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand firmed against the dollar on Wednesday, breaking through R12 per dollar for the first time since mid-2015, supported by a weaker greenback and expectations the new leader of the ruling ANC would rejuvenate the economy. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday, the rand is trading at R11.89 to the dollar, R16.99 to the pound and R14.79 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom now says its contracts with McKinsey and Trillian weren&#8217;t unlawful &#8211; but it still wants its money back; finance minister Malusi Gigaba says South Africans must get ready for some budget pain; the army and police will be brought in to monitor water access if day zero hits; and Eskom&#8217;s Koko says &#8216;it wasn&#8217;t me&#8217; to allegations of corruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":79580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221051","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\/221051","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=221051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221059,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221051\/revisions\/221059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}