{"id":241585,"date":"2018-05-02T07:52:53","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T05:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=241585"},"modified":"2018-05-02T07:54:04","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T05:54:04","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-293","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/241585\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-293\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Economy\/sa-loses-out-on-trumps-steel-tariff-exemption-20180501\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The US government has decided not to grant South Africa an exemption on its increased steel and aluminium tariffs.<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0The Department of Trade and Industry issued a statement expressing its disappointment on the matter on Monday, following a teleconference between minister Rob Davies and US ambassador CJ Mahoney.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/sci-tech\/2018-05-01-icasa-tells-ncc-to-deal-with-data-expiry-issue\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Icasa has explained that it is the National Consumer Commission\u2019s (NCC) job\u00a0to force the mobile phone industry to allow subscribers to make use of pre-paid data for up to three years<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0But the NCC doesn\u2019t agree and the impasse could mean further delays in the proposals implementation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/politics\/minimum-wage-of-r3500-will-increase-over-time-says-ramaphosa-14727053\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">President Cyril Ramaphosa has reiterated that the minimum wage of R3,500 a month is just a stepping stone and will increase over time.<\/a> <\/strong>Speaking at a Worker&#8217;s Day rally in Port Elizabeth, Ramaphosa acknowledged that while the R20 per hour national minimum wage is not a living wage, work is already underway to ensure that a living wage is achieved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/2018-05-02-wealthy-south-africans-could-be-the-next-target-warn-kidnapping-experts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wealthy South Africans may soon become the next target\u00a0of international kidnapping syndicates.<\/a><\/strong> This is according to\u00a0research by global kidnapping monitoring organisation, Red24, which says that\u00a034 foreigners living in South Africa have been kidnapped for ransom since 2016.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand has continued its slide against the dollar, with the currency now sitting at a four-month low against the greenback.\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was trading at R12.66 to the dollar, R17.22 to the pound and R15.19 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa to suffer alongside new US trade tariffs; no one wants to take responsibility for making data last for three years; plans already underway to increase R20 an hour minimum wage; and an international anti-kidnapping group has warned that South Africans may be the next target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":142924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-241585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241585","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=241585"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241617,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241585\/revisions\/241617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}