{"id":222737,"date":"2018-02-02T07:47:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T05:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=222737"},"modified":"2018-02-02T07:47:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T05:47:43","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-235","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/222737\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-235\/","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\/national\/2018-02-01-treasury-comes-out-to-bat-for-capitec-and-wants-viceroy-probed\/\">The Financial Services Board has confirmed that it will be probing Viceroy Research, after the controversial short-seller tanked Capitec&#8217;s share price this week<\/a><\/strong>. The FSB said it will be looking at\u00a0possible market abuse and breaches of the Financial Markets Act. Viceroy has stood by its report and welcomed the probe.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2018-02-02-00-zuma-digs-in-heels-ahead-of-sona\">President Jacob Zuma will deliver the State of the Nation Address.<\/a><\/strong> The Mail &amp; Guardian reports that the president told officials that he would reject any attempts to push him out of power before the speech, even if it meant facing impeachment. Meanwhile, Parliament has confirmed that the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/02\/02\/sona-to-go-ahead-amid-questions-around-zuma-exit\">SONA will move ahead as scheduled, despite calls for it to be postponed<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Suspended, then reinstated and now suspended again <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/energy\/eskoms-koko-faces-new-charges-13062550\">Eskom executive Matshela Koko will be facing new charges related to lapses in corporate governance<\/a><\/strong>. Koko has been fighting hard against Eskom&#8217;s new board&#8217;s attempts to push him out of the business, after being accused of corruption at the power utility. The new board is trying to clean up Eskom&#8217;s image.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Public services minister <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2018-02-02-faith-muthambi-goes-on-festive-hiring-spree\/\">Faith Muthambi has reportedly gone on a hiring spree over the December holidays and now has three times as many staff working under her than is permitted<\/a><\/strong>. According to the Star, the minister &#8211; who is known to blow public funds &#8211; has even hired personnel in roles that don&#8217;t even exist.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand weakened against the dollar on Thursday, with market attention pinned on President Jacob Zuma\u2019s future, while market-heavyweight Naspers weighed on the bourse. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was trading at R11.90 to the dollar, R16.98 to the pound and R14.88 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FSB will probe Viceroy over possible market abuse; Zuma digs in his heels over the State of the Nation Address; suspended Eskom executive Matshela Koko will face new charges; and public services minister Faith Muthambi reportedly hired three times as many people as permitted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":222199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222737","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\/222737","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=222737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222753,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222737\/revisions\/222753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}