{"id":229883,"date":"2018-03-07T08:02:42","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T06:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=229883"},"modified":"2018-03-07T08:02:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T06:02:42","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-258","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/229883\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-258\/","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.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-03-06\/south-africa-s-2017-recession-under-zuma-didn-t-happen-chart\">South Africa&#8217;s brief recession at the start of 2017 didn&#8217;t happen says Stats SA<\/a><\/strong>. In revising its GDP data for the year, the stats body showed that the fourth quarter of 2016 actually showed 0.4% growth, not a 0.3% decline as reported at the time, meaning that there was no technical recession at the end of Q1 2017.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>While markets continue to feel unsettled by talk of land expropriation without compensation, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/unused-land-is-main-target-of-sas-expropriation-plan\/\">senior ANC officials have said that the main focus of any policy or constitutional shift will be on land that is unused or not being used effectively by its owners<\/a><\/strong>. The ANC has said the policy shift has to keep the economy and food security as top priorities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/03\/07\/indian-authorities-suspect-guptas-of-unlawfully-bringing-money-into-country\">Indian tax authorities have reportedly seized documents and other evidence during a raid on Gupta properties in India.<\/a><\/strong> According to local media reports the family is suspected of bringing money into the country illegally, and had properties in three different cities raided.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2018-03-07-sassagate-reloaded-concourts-mogoeng-angered-by-sassas-and-bathabile-dlaminis-serial-delinquency\/#.Wp9-lHcjFTY\">The Sassa crisis continues.<\/a><\/strong> The Constitutional Court has reserved judgement in yet another request to extend and already extended and invalid social grants contract with CPS. The Court slammed CPS and former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini, saying that the two were blackmailing the court, and accusing them of purposefully delaying the handover process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand and government bonds firmed on Tuesday after data showed the economy expanded more than expected at the end of last year, while stocks also ended the session higher as food company Tiger Brands recovered from three-month lows. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was at R11.83 to the dollar, R16.42 to the pound and R14.69 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recession? What recession? Revised GDP data says the technical recession of Q1 2017 didn&#8217;t happen; senior ANC officials say land reform will focus on unused land; Indian tax authorities have raided Gupta properties in three cities on suspicion of illicit financial flows; and Bathabile Dlamini&#8217;s Sassa grants crisis continues in her absence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":212411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229883","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\/229883","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=229883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229901,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229883\/revisions\/229901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}