{"id":232587,"date":"2018-03-19T08:21:37","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T06:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=232587"},"modified":"2018-03-19T08:33:22","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T06:33:22","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-266","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/232587\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-266\/","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>Moody&#8217;s will announce its decision on whether or not to junk South Africa this week, with a planned announcement some time before Friday. While many have been optimistic that president Cyril Ramaphosa has done enough to avert a downgrade, economists and investors are taking a cautious approach. The uncertainty before the announcement has sent the rand back over R12 to the dollar. [General]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Will former president Jacob Zuma pay his own legal bills? <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/gauteng\/state-must-pay-zumas-legal-bills-13902650\">That&#8217;s the hot topic following the NPA&#8217;s decision to proceed with fraud and corruption charges against him.<\/a><\/strong> There is reportedly a deal in place that the state will pay the bills, but Zuma will have to repay the amounts if he loses the case. Zuma&#8217;s family says that there is no money to repay the state in any outcome. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2018-03-19-sars-wars-rogue-unit-prosecutor-sello-maema-compromised-but-npa-is-keeping-mum\/#.Wq9TZXcjFTY\">Questions have been raised about &#8216;tainted&#8217; prosecutors who are part of the recycled case against the so-called SARS rogue unit<\/a><\/strong>, which has again turned up out of the blue. Former SARS execs have again been called to court on the same charge sheet that was unsuccessfully used against Pravin Gordhan. [Daily Maverick]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>As South Africa continued to deal with its listeriosis outbreak, concerns are being raised about the economic impact &#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-03-19\/township-favorites-shunned-amid-south-african-meat-scandal\">particularly in the informal and township economies, where many of the favoured products have been recalled or are being avoided by the populace<\/a><\/strong>. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand weakened against the dollar on Friday as investors took a cautious tone towards the currency ahead of rating decision by Moody\u2019s, while stocks ended the week lower as bourse heavyweight Naspers fell. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Monday the rand was at R12.01 to the dollar, R16.72 to the pound and R14.73 to the euro<\/a>. <\/strong>[XE]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rand is over R12 to the dollar as SA awaits the Moody&#8217;s rating decision; the SARS rogue unit case is back out of the blue, but prosecutors are silent on why; and will Zuma pay his own legal costs for facing fraud and corruption charges? His family says there&#8217;s no money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":222769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232587","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\/232587","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=232587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232601,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232587\/revisions\/232601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}