{"id":251279,"date":"2018-06-13T08:17:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T06:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=251279"},"modified":"2018-06-13T08:17:43","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T06:17:43","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-323","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/251279\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-323\/","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:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/2018-06-12-eskom-staff-wants-increase-of-between-9-and-15--or-the-lights-will-switch-off\/\">Eskom says it will keep the lights on in South Africa despite threats from workers to shut power across the country as they demand pay hikes as high as 15%<\/a><\/strong>. Unions NUM and Numsa are joining forces to run lunch-time pickets this week, saying they will go to the office of the president if Eskom does not comply.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/commoditiesNews\/idAFL8N1TE3VX\">More creditors have agreed to give crisis-hit Steinhoff breathing room to restructure over R140 billion in debt, as the group continues to fight for its survival<\/a><\/strong>. The group revealed holes in its finances six months ago, which sent the group&#8217;s share price crashing, leaving it on the edge of collapse. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/06\/12\/sassa-uncovers-fraud-involving-4-000-beneficiaries\">Social grants group Sassa has uncovered over 4,000 fraudulent social grants beneficiaries in its latest transition to a new payments system<\/a><\/strong>. The group said it managed to identify the fraudulent transactions before they were made. The beneficiaries were not fake, but rather the amounts being paid were manipulated to be higher. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-06-12\/zuma-s-defiance-hampers-ramaphosa-s-bid-to-reform-south-africa\">Former president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s refusal to fade into to the political background is causing fresh divisions within the ANC<\/a><\/strong>, analysts say, which is preventing president Cyril Ramaphosa from implementing his reform strategy with full effect. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand fell for a fourth successive day on Tuesday, trading near a six-month low before retail sales and mining data later in the week. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was trading at R13.33 to the dollar, R17.82 to the pound and R15.67 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom workers are threatening to plunge SA into darkness if their wage demands aren&#8217;t met; more creditors are giving Steinhoff some breathing room; Sassa identified and blocked over 4,000 fraudulent grants payments; and Zuma&#8217;s defiance is dividing the ANC, and preventing Ramaphosa&#8217;s reform plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":75316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-251279","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\/251279","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=251279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251285,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251279\/revisions\/251285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}