{"id":259153,"date":"2018-07-18T08:13:08","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T06:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=259153"},"modified":"2018-07-18T08:13:08","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T06:13:08","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-348","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/259153\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-348\/","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.fin24.com\/Economy\/a-decade-of-officials-conduct-to-be-probed-in-lifestyle-audits-gordhan-20180718-2\">Public officials who were active in government between 2009 and 2019 will undergo lifestyle audits, Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan has said<\/a><\/strong>. The audits will follow existing procedures, but aims to hold all public officials who have unduly benefited from public funds accountable. [News24]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N1UD3C4\">Unions are ready to sign a wage agreement with Eskom, sources say, with the power utility&#8217;s offer of a 7.5% increase this year, and 7% next year<\/a><\/strong> being the most appealing. Eskom and unions have been negotiating wages for weeks, after workers embarked on an illegal strike that saw power shut down and stations sabotaged. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2018-07-17-da-challenges-ipsos-poll-report\">The DA has rubbished a new Ipsos poll that shows the party losing a significant chunk of support in the 2019 elections.<\/a><\/strong> The party said that the poll understates DA support, and that the only poll that matters is the election itself. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/132433\/south-africa-2016-election-results-the-predictions-vs-the-outcome\/\">Ipsos&#8217; polls in the past have proven to be close to the actual result.<\/a><\/strong> [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/city-press.news24.com\/News\/obama-says-world-should-resist-cynicism-over-rise-of-strongmen-20180717\">Former US president Barack Obama delivered a message of hope at the Nelson Mandela Lecture on Tuesday<\/a><\/strong>, calling on people to resist becoming cynical in a world of &#8216;rising strongmen&#8217; and growing uncertainty. Today marks what would have been Nelson Mandela&#8217;s 100th birthday. [City Press]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand weakened on Tuesday, giving way to a recovering dollar and the return of bearish positioning ahead of consumer inflation and retail data that precede a central bank decision on lending rates. <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, R17.45 to the pound and R15.50 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A decade of public officials will undergo lifestyle audits; unions are said to be ready to sign a wage agreement with Eskom; the DA says Ipsos&#8217; latest election polls are rubbish; and former US president Barack Obama delivered a message of hope for Mandela Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":139895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-259153","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\/259153","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=259153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259173,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259153\/revisions\/259173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}