{"id":229521,"date":"2018-03-06T08:29:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T06:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=229521"},"modified":"2018-03-06T08:29:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T06:29:14","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-257","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/229521\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-257\/","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\/economy\/2018-03-06-nhlanhla-nene-sa-did-enough-to-stave-off-downgrade\/\">Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene has met with ratings firm Moody&#8217;s, and says he believes South Africa has done enough to avoid another ratings downgrade to junk status<\/a><\/strong>. Nene said that Moody&#8217;s was not happy with the mid-term budget policy delivered in October last year, and also the country&#8217;s indicators. However, they were pleased with government&#8217;s actions so far.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/03\/06\/tiger-brands-refuse-to-take-blame-for-listeriosis-deaths\">Tiger Brands is refusing to take responsibility for the world&#8217;s largest listeriosis outbreak, saying that there is no link between the group and 180 deaths due to the disease.<\/a><\/strong> The department of health, however, says that the outbreak has been tracked back to two of Tiger Brand\u2019s Enterprise facilities. The facilities have been closed, and Enterprise products have been pulled from shelves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/03\/06\/nene-energy-dept-needs-r1-trillion-for-nuclear-plans\">South Africa&#8217;s nuclear plans will officially cost at least R1 trillion, finance minister Nhlanhla Nene confirmed.<\/a> <\/strong>The figure has often been denied by government. While nuclear energy remains &#8216;on the table&#8217;, the new finance minister said the country will stick with current projects, like independent power providers, for the time being.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.za\/2018\/03\/05\/gigaba-the-latest-big-fish-to-duck-parliamentary-inquiry_a_23377477\/?utm_hp_ref=za-homepage\">Home Affairs minister Malusi Gigaba cancelled his appearance before the parliamentary state capture inquiry, saying that he needs more time to prepare<\/a><\/strong>. Gigaba was due to answer questions related to his role as Public Enterprises minister and Home Affairs Minister during the time that the Guptas and their associates got their hands on state companies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South African stocks ended Monday slightly higher with traders citing opportunistic buying following sharp declines in the previous week on worries about a US-led global trade war, while the rand benefited from a weaker dollar. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday the rand was at R11.84 to the dollar, R16.39 to the pound and R14.62 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa may have done enough to avoid another downgrade to junk; Tiger Brands refuses to accept blame for the world&#8217;s biggest listeriosis outbreak; Nene confirms what has long been known about SA&#8217;s nuclear energy plans &#8211; a R1 trillion price tag; and Gigaba dodges parliament&#8217;s state capture inquiry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":176465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229521","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=229521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229551,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229521\/revisions\/229551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}