{"id":235443,"date":"2018-04-04T08:03:17","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T06:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=235443"},"modified":"2018-04-04T08:04:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-04T06:04:57","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-275","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/235443\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-275\/","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>Concerns have been raised that the new demerit system as part of the draft Aarto laws could see<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/motoring\/industry-news\/e-toll-defaulters-to-face-licence-suspension-14230549\"> many Gauteng motorists lose their licences due to defaulting on e-toll debt<\/a><\/strong>. However, e-toll opponents say that the draft laws are extremely flawed, and will unlikely pass in their current format. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/04\/04\/nene-it-s-critical-that-taxpayers-money-used-appropriately\">Finance minster Nhlanhla Nene says the government has to win back the trust of the people by ensuring that taxes are directed where they are needed<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; and not wasted on fruitless activities. He was speaking on the 2017\/18 tax collection figures, where SARS missed its expected haul by R700 million. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Former president Jacob Zuma will head to court this week, and his <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/politics\/zuma-backers-call-for-donations-to-help-them-get-to-court-14231628\">supporters have called for donations to help support his defence<\/a><\/strong>. Zuma will be facing charges of fraud and corruption surrounding the South African arms deal. Zuma&#8217;s defence is expected to challenge the charges in every way possible &#8211; all paid for by the state. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.za\/2018\/04\/04\/property-mogul-pam-golding-dies-at-age-90_a_23402420\/?utm_hp_ref=za-homepage\">Property mogul Pam Golding has passed away at age 90<\/a><\/strong>. Golding entered the male-dominated property market in 1976 and built a property empire, with operations in Africa and Europe. While she retired a few years ago, she remained the company&#8217;s lifetime president. [News24]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand firmed on Tuesday as global risk appetite improved and markets appeared to shrug off worries that US-China trade tensions could damage global growth. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday, the rand was trading at R11.82 to the dollar, R16.64 to the pound and R14.51 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>. [XE]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Aarto laws spell trouble for e-toll defaulters; Nene says government needs to stop wasting tax money to win back public trust; Zuma&#8217;s supporters are trying to raise money for his defence in court this week; and property mogul Pam Golding has passed away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":235455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235443","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\/235443","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=235443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235453,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235443\/revisions\/235453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}