{"id":256955,"date":"2018-07-06T07:47:27","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T05:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=256955"},"modified":"2018-07-06T07:47:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T05:47:27","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-340","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/256955\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-340\/","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.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-07-05\/south-african-inquiry-recommends-changes-to-private-healthcare\">Discovery, Netcare and Mediclinic are planning to make submissions to the Competition Commission<\/a><\/strong> after they were singled out as being too dominant in SA&#8217;s private healthcare market. Discovery&#8217;s profits were brought into question when medical aid schemes were not supposed to be for-profit ventures. The group said it just runs its business really well. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/south-africa\/eskom-unions-back-at-negotiating-table\">Eskom and its workers are back at the negotiation table to iron out wage hikes for 2018 and the next few years.<\/a><\/strong> Government recently increased its offer to 6.2%, and 6% for subsequent years, while unions were demanding 9%. Unions are expected to give feedback on government&#8217;s offer. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/07\/06\/illegal-cigarette-trade-accounts-for-14-of-sars-r50bn-shortfall\">Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene has been called on by business leaders to investigate the illicit cigarette industry in South Africa<\/a><\/strong>, which may account for a sizeable chunk of SARS R50 billion shortfall. Research has shown that illicit cigarette sales are costing South Africa R7 billion a year. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N1U142Z\">Traditional leaders have weighed in on the land debate and have warned government to keep its hands off of &#8216;their&#8217; land.<\/a><\/strong> King and queens have warned government to exclude land control by local chiefs from its plan to redistribute land to black South Africans. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand rallied to its firmest in one week on Thursday, taking advantage of a slip in the dollar to push past key technical level as investors took profits on the greenback\u2019s recent gains. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the currency was trading at R13.53 to the dollar, R17.90 to the pound and R15.83 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discovery, Netcare and Mediclinic have something to say after being singled out for dominating SA&#8217;s private healthcare; Eskom and workers are back at the negotiation table over wages; and SA business leaders have called for an investigation into illicit cigarette sales, which may be costing the country billions each year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":230075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-256955","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\/256955","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=256955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256981,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256955\/revisions\/256981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}