{"id":247445,"date":"2018-05-28T07:32:49","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T05:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=247445"},"modified":"2018-05-28T07:32:49","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T05:32:49","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-311","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/247445\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-311\/","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>While president Cyril Ramaphosa is on the right path, South Africa won&#8217;t crawl out of junk status until there are actual outcomes to positive economic policies &#8211; such as stronger economic growth and certainty on the country&#8217;s land reform agenda, says S&amp;P. Ratings firm S&amp;P Global held South Africa&#8217;s rating at junk with a stable outlook on Friday. [S&amp;P]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Preliminary findings from the investigation into VBS Mutual Bank&#8217;s decline show that politically connected middle men, who convinced municipalities to pump their money into the bank,<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/news\/2018-05-26-top-politicians-scored-at-vbs\/\"> earned massive commissions for doing the job<\/a><\/strong>. Some local politicians bypassed councils and proper processes in signing off the funds, it was heard. [Times Live]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/companies\/mtn-and-vodacom-in-row-over-transnet-tender-15189452\">MTN and Vodacom will be squaring off in court over a multi-million rand contract with Transnet<\/a><\/strong>. MTN is reportedly refusing to port over thousands of numbers to Vodacom, which is taking over the contract. However, MTN claims Transnet still owes it R40 million. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL5N1SY0CW\">The DA has rejected weekend reports that it was on the verge of splitting, saying that they were nothing more than rumours and gossip<\/a><\/strong>. The City Press on Sunday reported that at least 5 senior leaders in the party were dissatisfied with the current direction of the party, and wanted to form a new &#8216;truly liberal&#8217; party, possibly led by Helen Zille. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand weakened in cautious trade on Friday, ahead of the ratings review by S&amp;P Global, but recovered following news that the group kept the rating level with a stable outlook. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Monday the rand was trading at R12.45 to the dollar, R16.61 to the pound and R14.60 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa has a long road ahead before climbing out of junk status; investigation reveals political leaders scored big by directing funds to VBS; MTN and Vodacom to butt heads over a lucrative Transnet contract; and the DA rejects reports that it&#8217;s close to splitting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":168963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-247445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247445","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=247445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247455,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247445\/revisions\/247455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}