{"id":233139,"date":"2018-03-22T08:11:07","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T06:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=233139"},"modified":"2018-03-22T08:11:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T06:11:07","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-268","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/233139\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-268\/","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\/2018-03-20\/mcebisi-jonas-is-said-to-be-considered-for-south-africa-tax-post\">Former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas is reportedly being considered as the permanent replacement for suspended SARS head, Tom Moyane<\/a><\/strong>. Jonas was the key whistleblower in the Gupta state capture saga. His name was conspicuously absent from the list of ministers and deputies returning to government in president Ramaphosa&#8217;s first cabinet reshuffle. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/296695\/cost-of-vip-protection-hits-a-massive-r3b-and-it-increased-the-most-under-zuma\">South Africa&#8217;s private security budget for government officials has exploded from R100 million to R3 billion in the past 18 years<\/a> <\/strong>&#8211; with the biggest jumps seen under former president Jacob Zuma. A new report on security by the IRR, shows that at current growth rates, as much as R5.3 billion could be budgeted for security in 2019. [702]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/03\/22\/sap-insists-it-was-unaware-of-gupta-links\">Software group SAP has denied reports that it knew it was potentially dealing with the Gupta family when it signed contracts with intermediaries to help score government business<\/a><\/strong>. The SABC reportedly has documents showing that SAP management were warned the Guptas could be involved &#8211; however the company said it had no knowledge of their involvement. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/lefties-dead-to-me-australian-minister-vows-to-return-white-sa-farmers-back\">Australian minister of home affairs Peter Dutton has doubled down on his plans to help white South African farmers emigrate to the country.<\/a><\/strong> He said his department is assessing whether there is a way to make it easier for them, on the current visa programmes. Australian minister of foreign affairs this past week said there were no planned changes to visa policies in the country. [ENCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand gained was firmer on Tuesday as positive inflation figures and the likelihood the country would avoid a downgrade by Moody\u2019s soothed sentiment ahead of an anticipated lending rates increase in the United States. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was at R11.86 to the dollar, R16.78 to the pound and R14.64 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mcebisi Jonas could be returning as head of SARS; the SA government&#8217;s private security budget as exploded to R3 billion; SAP says it didn&#8217;t know it could be doing business with the Guptas when it paid kickbacks to companies; and Australia&#8217;s home affairs minister doubles down on plans to help white farmers move down under.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":160653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233139","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\/233139","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=233139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233141,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233139\/revisions\/233141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}