{"id":236019,"date":"2018-04-06T08:14:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T06:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=236019"},"modified":"2018-04-06T08:14:05","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T06:14:05","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-277","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/236019\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-277\/","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:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/commoditiesNews\/idAFL5N1RI4D7\">Former president Jacob Zuma will appear in court today on charges of fraud and corruption.<\/a><\/strong> Zuma, who has denied everything, will be answering for his role in the R30 billion arms deal in 1999. Others involved were convicted on fraud charges for trying to bribe Zuma, who was deputy president at the time. Charges against Zuma were set aside when he became president. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/malema-expected-in-court-for-land-grab-comments\">EFF leader Julius Malema will also be making an appearance in court today, for encouraging land grabs across the country.<\/a><\/strong> He faces charges of contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act for inciting supporters to take over land in Newcastle. Malema has faced similar charges previously. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2018-04-05-state-capture-another-saps-sole-supplier-threatens-to-cut-services-this-time-to-crime-intelligence\/#.WscO03eg9TY\">A Durban IT services provider is reportedly threatening to cut off communication services to the SAPS&#8217; crime intelligence unit, unless it is paid almost R5.8 million to keep them going<\/a><\/strong>. The service provider is the same company that sold 200 &#8216;hi-tech&#8217; bullet proof vests to the SAPS for R6.7 million &#8211; which was deemed heavily inflated. [Daily Maverick]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/04\/06\/num-renewable-energy-deals-will-lead-to-massive-job-losses\">The National Union of Mineworkers says that government&#8217;s signing of 27 renewable energy agreements will lead to 40,000 job losses in the energy sector.<\/a><\/strong> The union lost a court battle to prevent the signing of the agreements, and is now threatening to pull support from the ANC over the matter. The IPPs say the agreements will create 61,000 new jobs. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand weakened against the dollar on Thursday as the greenback rose amid signs the United States may negotiate a resolution to a trade dispute with China, while stocks edged higher. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was at R12.03 to the dollar, R16.83 to the pound and R14.72 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zuma is finally getting his day in court; Malema is also facing the music for land grab calls; a Durban IT service provider is threatening to pull the plug on CI systems unless he&#8217;s paid millions; and NUM says renewable energy will cost SA over 40,000 jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":107639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236019","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\/236019","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=236019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236045,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236019\/revisions\/236045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}