{"id":223068,"date":"2018-02-05T08:01:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T06:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=223068"},"modified":"2018-02-05T08:01:35","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T06:01:35","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-236","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/223068\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-236\/","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\/2018-02-05-president-jacob-zuma-refuses-to-step-down\/\">President Jacob Zuma has refused to step down voluntarily, and after reportedly being given a choice to do so, or face a formal party recall.<\/a> <\/strong>The ANC&#8217;s top six are expected to meet with the party&#8217;s national working committee today to discuss the issue. The committee would have to support the motion for a recall, and special NEC meeting would have to be set up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/retail-and-consumer\/2018-02-05-dutch-investors-institute-legal-action-against-steinhoff\/\">Dutch and European companies have launched legal proceedings against Steinhoff<\/a><\/strong>. The groups want the embattled furniture and retail group to start compensating investors for the losses suffered due to the company&#8217;s botched financials, which tanked the share price when investigations into possible fraud made headlines across the world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/2018-02-03-broke-prasa-to-pump-r1bn-into-bank-that-helped-zuma-pay-back-the-money\/\">Cash-strapped state rail company Prasa has reportedly committed to investing R1 billion in the bank that helped president Jacob Zuma pay back the Nkandla money he owed<\/a><\/strong>. Prasa has denied that the deal is in place, however, the Times reports that insiders from VBS bank have confirmed that it is expecting the R1 billion in two tranches.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/economy\/2018-02-05-farmers-lose-r14bn-as-cape-drought-bites\/\">The Western Cape drought has already cost farmers over R14 billion in losses, with Agri Western Cape warning that as many as 50,000 people&#8217;s jobs could be at stake in the region<\/a><\/strong>. Despite &#8216;day zero&#8217; being pushed back by a few days due to better water consumption, Cape Town is still in the midst of the worst drought in a century, and seems certain to run out of water.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s main stock index ended lower on Friday, wrapping up its worst week in two years as an extended bull run loses steam, while the rand dropped 2% after strong US jobs data lifted the dollar. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Monday the rand was trading at R12.04 to the dollar, R17.01 to the pound and R15.01 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zuma refuses to go quietly; European companies take legal action against Steinhoff; Prasa is reportedly investing R1 billion in the bank that paid off Zuma&#8217;s Nkandla debt; and the Cape drought has cost farmers R14 billion, and there are 50,000 jobs on the line.<\/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-223068","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\/223068","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=223068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223084,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223068\/revisions\/223084"}],"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=223068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}