{"id":249805,"date":"2018-06-06T07:57:29","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T05:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=249805"},"modified":"2018-06-06T07:57:29","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T05:57:29","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-318","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/249805\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-318\/","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=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/06\/06\/economists-upbeat-on-sa-economy-despite-q1-contraction\">Despite worse than expected GDP growth figures for the first quarter of 2018, economists remain fairly upbeat about South Africa&#8217;s economy<\/a><\/strong>, saying that it will grow from here. Stats SA reported a decline in GDP of 2.2%, quarter on quarter. Some economists say this figure may be revised in later reports to reflect seasonal adjustments. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-06-05\/south-africa-faces-long-haul-to-roll-back-scourge-of-corruption\">South Africans expecting swift justice being served to those implicated in state capture may have to wait years for any real traction to the process<\/a> <\/strong>&#8211; and there are no guarantees that they will be successfully prosecuted, or that about R100 billion in pilfered state funds can be recovered. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The asset forfeiture unit pulled out of a settlement agreement with consultancy McKinsey where the latter would pay back R1 billion it got through dodgy contracts with Eskom and Transnet. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2018-06-05-why-mckinseys-eskom-r1-billion-is-still-not-in-state-coffers\/#.Wxd0H3eg9TY\">The AFU pulled out due to a clause in the agreement that could have absolved the Gupta-linked Trillian of paying its dues in the mess<\/a><\/strong>. [Scorpio]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/mps-still-fail-to-declare-interests\">There are a growing number of parliamentarians who are failing to disclose their interests, according to the ethics committee<\/a><\/strong>. In 2016, 17 MPs submitted information late, and in 2017 this jumped to 42. The committee said MPs who fail to submit on time will be &#8216;named and shamed&#8217;, but only through the set process, where they first have a chance to explain why they were late. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand fell to a two-week low against the dollar on Tuesday and government bonds weakened after data showed the economy suffered its worst quarterly contraction in nine years in the first quarter. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was trading at R12.72 to the dollar, R17.07 to the pound and R14.92 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite a 2.2% contraction in GDP, some economists say we should still be upbeat about the economy; the state capture investigations are going to drag on for years &#8211; and there&#8217;s no guarantee SA will get the money back; we now know why McKinsey still hasn&#8217;t paid back the R1 billion; and MPs are getting sloppy at declaring their interests to parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":118672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-249805","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\/249805","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=249805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249809,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249805\/revisions\/249809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}