{"id":252677,"date":"2018-06-20T07:13:44","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T05:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=252677"},"modified":"2018-06-20T07:13:44","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T05:13:44","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-328","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/252677\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-328\/","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\/southAfricaNews\/idAFJ8N1T001B\">Eskom has offered to give workers a 4.7% wage increase<\/a> <\/strong>&#8211; a step up from its initial offer of 0%, but still way off demands of 15%. Workers last week embarked on an illegal strike, sabotaging Eskom&#8217;s systems and forcing load shedding to return. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/gauteng\/consumer-crunch-fuel-hikes-have-domino-effect-15565671\">Fuel hikes and April&#8217;s VAT increase are having a domino effect<\/a><\/strong>, with consumers now facing higher prices and other costs. This is also having an impact on the poorest, who now face another 3% hike in public transport costs, on top of a recent 8% hike. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/?page_id=1874\">Stats SA will be releasing the latest inflation figures today<\/a><\/strong>, which may inform a decision by the Reserve Bank to hike rates &#8211; though it may not come in the short-term. Deputy governor Kuben Naidoo this week said the bank was taking a wait-and-see approach. [Stat SA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/06\/20\/presidency-confirms-state-to-continue-paying-zuma-s-legal-bill\">The presidency has confirmed that it will continue paying former president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s legal bills<\/a><\/strong>, despite efforts by opposition parties to end the arrangement. The presidency said that it will continue paying until there has been a court ruling on the matter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0South Africa\u2019s rand fell to its weakest in nearly 7 months on Tuesday as US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs in an escalating tit-for-tat trade war with China, hitting sentiment in emerging markets. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday the rand was at R13.74 to the dollar, R18.07 to the pound and R15.89 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom has offered workers an inflation-based wage increase; fuel and VAT hikes are having a domino effect on consumer prices; SA&#8217;s inflation data will be published today; and the presidency says it will continue paying Zuma&#8217;s legal bills for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":56303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-252677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252677","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=252677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252685,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252677\/revisions\/252685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}