{"id":239415,"date":"2018-04-20T08:07:40","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T06:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=239415"},"modified":"2018-04-20T08:07:40","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T06:07:40","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-287","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/239415\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-287\/","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\/africaTech\/idAFL8N1RW6W4\">President Cyril Ramaphosa has cut his business trip and Commonwealth meetings short to come back to South Africa to deal with rising tensions and violent service delivery protests<\/a><\/strong> in the North West province. Ramaphosa is trying to draw investment to South Africa, however, tensions between residents and police have escalated. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/04\/20\/poor-collection-of-e-tolls-posing-threat-to-sanral-s-future-parly-told\">Sanral says that motorists&#8217; refusal to pay e-tolls is costing the company dearly, and claims to have already lost R128 billion in investment due to its opposition in other provinces.<\/a><\/strong> The roads agency says that one way or another road users have to pay for the roads, and a mechanism needs to be found soon. The transport department has all but confirmed that e-tolls will be scrapped. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/city-press.news24.com\/Business\/we-didnt-get-any-notice-absa-on-steinhoff-20180419\">Absa says it has not received any sort of notice from Dutch groups for its role in the Steinhoff saga<\/a><\/strong>. Dutch non-profit VEB on Thursday said it would seek a settlement deal with Absa for the bank&#8217;s role in setting up the Steinhoff prospectus. Absa denies getting any notices. VEB confirmed that a digital copy was delivered to Absa, and it was processed by Dutch authorities. [City Press]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-04-19\/kganyago-signals-inflation-unlikely-to-prompt-s-africa-rate-cut\">The Reserve Bank has indicated that the better than expected inflation figures published this week are unlikely to spur another interest rate cut<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; at least not in the short term. Analysts are expecting at least one more rate cut in 2018, but have cautioned that South Africa needs more good news beyond healthy inflation numbers. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa&#8217;s rand traded flat on Thursday, drifting in a narrow band against the dollar as traders held off on large bets and took profit&#8217;s after the previous session&#8217;s rally to a one-week best. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was trading at R11.97 to the dollar, R16.85 to the pound and R14.78 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Ramaphosa has cut his trip to Britain short to deal with violent protests back home; Sanral says e-toll opposition has lost R128 billion in investment; Absa says it hasn&#8217;t received any notices from foreign groups over the Steinhoff saga; and the Reserve Bank says good inflation numbers don&#8217;t spell another rate cut just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":62977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239415","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\/239415","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=239415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239437,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239415\/revisions\/239437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}