{"id":257955,"date":"2018-07-12T08:05:58","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T06:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=257955"},"modified":"2018-07-12T08:05:58","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T06:05:58","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-344","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/257955\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-344\/","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.iol.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/gauteng\/vbs-looted-in-r15bn-epic-scam-15970489\">The state has lodged a court bid to go after the personal assets of VBS executives which it claims looted the bank for over R1.5 billion.<\/a><\/strong> The state has accused the executives of large scale fraud, and is seeking to reclaim every cent stolen &#8211; starting with the group&#8217;s CEO. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/energy\/2018-07-12-nhlanhla-nene-dares-eskom-unions-to-table-affordable-wage-proposal\/\">Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene says that if unions want Eskom to pay their wage demands from the national ficus, they must come up with proposals on how that can be done.<\/a><\/strong> &#8220;As trade unionists, they can request the funding, but as taxpayers, they can explain how they propose to finance the funding they request,&#8221; he said. [Business Day]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-07-11\/south-africa-s-ramaphosa-urges-nigeria-to-sign-africa-trade-pact\">South Africa is courting Nigeria to convince it to sign a continent-wide free-trade agreement, which will see the continent retain more of its resources and boost African businesses<\/a><\/strong>. Nigeria said it was close to signing, but was proceeding with caution to ensure it makes no mistakes. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/SouthAfrica\/News\/exclusive-gupta-associate-advised-magashule-on-vrede-dairy-project-court-papers-20180712\">New details have emerged in the Vrede Dairy Project case at the centre of the fraud case against the Guptas.<\/a> <\/strong>According to News24, Gupta associates have again been heavily implicated, this time in their role in advising ANC secretary general and then Free State Premier Ace Magashule on the project. [News24]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand retreated on Wednesday after the US threatened to impose tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, cooling risk demand that had seen the currency rally to its best in three weeks. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday, the rand was trading at R13.53 to the dollar, R17.87 to the pound and R15.81 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The state is going after VBS executives for the R1.5 billion looted; Nene says if unions want their wage hikes at Eskom, they should show how the state is supposed to fund it; and South Africa courts Nigeria to sign continental free-trade agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":255019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-257955","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\/257955","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=257955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257981,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257955\/revisions\/257981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}