{"id":263809,"date":"2018-08-08T07:48:32","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T05:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=263809"},"modified":"2018-08-08T07:48:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T05:48:32","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-363","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/263809\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-363\/","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.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2018-08-08-moyane-dossier-part-3-how-moyanes-sars-illegally-paid-r420m-in-vat-refunds-to-the-guptas\/\">New investigations by Scorpio and News24 allege that SARS was in the thick of dodgy payments to the Guptas<\/a><\/strong>, with new evidence showing that the revenue service under Tom Moyane paid over R420 million in VAT and personal income refunds to Gupta companies and individuals at the behest of the family. [Daily Maverick]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/08\/08\/feesmustfall-damage-costs-soar-to-nearly-r800m\">Damages caused by Fees Must Fall protests have jumped to over R800 million, with the universities of the North West, Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal racking up the highest costs<\/a><\/strong>. Students protested rising fees in tertiary education between 2015 and 2017, with some resorting to arson, and burning down campuses. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/314537\/less-motorists-are-paying-e-tolls-since-anc-gauteng-announcement\">E-toll collection company, ETC and Sanral are doing their best to keep operations &#8216;business as usual&#8217;, but have noted far fewer motorists paying e-tolls<\/a> <\/strong>since the ANC announced that the system had failed and that it would do away with it. According to experts compliance levels have dropped below 25% on the failed scheme. [702]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/gauteng\/end-of-the-line-for-afro-worldview-on-august-20-16455741\">The final nail in the coffin for AfroWorldview (formerly the Gupta-owned ANN7) will be hit on August 20,<\/a><\/strong> after DStv confirmed that the channel will be going off the air. The AfroVoice newspaper (formerly The New Age) shut its doors in June, with owner,\u00a0Mzwanele Manyi seeking to have it liquidated. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand gained more than 1% on Tuesday, reversing the previous session\u2019s losses as the dollar rally paused and investors sought alternatives to the Turkish lira. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday, the rand was trading at R13.29 to the dollar, R17.22 to the pound and R15.45 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New investigations reveal more dodgy payments to the Guptas by SARS; Fees Must Fall protesters caused over R800 million in damages at SA universities; e-toll compliance has tanked since the ANC announced it will scrap the system; and AfroWorldview (formerly ANN7) will be pulled off the air by 20 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":80497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-263809","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\/263809","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=263809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263833,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263809\/revisions\/263833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}