{"id":264101,"date":"2018-08-10T07:30:06","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T05:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=264101"},"modified":"2018-08-10T07:30:06","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T05:30:06","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-364","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/264101\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-364\/","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:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2018-08-10-00-bombshell-plan-to-lay-off-30000-public-servants\">As part of government&#8217;s plan to cut costs, it will reportedly be cutting as many as 30,000 jobs in the public service.<\/a><\/strong> This is according to insiders who attended a Cabinet lekgotla, adding that R4 billion has been set aside to initiate severance package plans. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/numsa-threatens-withdraw-wage-negotiations-eskom\">Unions are looking for a free pass from Eskom<\/a><\/strong>, threatening to pull out of wage talks if the power utility continues to chase disciplinary action against workers that sabotaged the nation&#8217;s power supply and embarked on illegal strikes. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbcafrica.com\/insights\/steinhoff\/2018\/08\/09\/class-action-lawsuit-against-steinhoff-deloitte-current-former-directors-filed-in-south-africa\/\">A class action lawsuit has been laid against Steinhoff and several other groups, including SA banks, seeking R185 billion in damages.<\/a> <\/strong>This is how much investors believe was wiped from their portfolios due to Steinhoff&#8217;s very public meltdown following an accounting scandal. [CNBC]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/314799\/uj-professors-ordered-to-pay-back-r20-million-they-stole-from-university\">Former executives at the University of Johannesburg, Roy Marcus and Jaco van Schoor, have been ordered to pay back R20 million they stole from the university.<\/a><\/strong> The duo used fraudulent invoices to channel money intended for UJ\u2019s projects to companies linked to them. [702]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand retreated on Wednesday ahead of a bank holiday on Thursday, with investors booking profits from the previous session\u2019s rally and closing positions as the dollar bounced back on the latest US and China trade war twist. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was at R13.71 to the dollar, R17.59 to the pound and R15.79 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government plans to cut 30,000 jobs; unions want a free pass, threatening to pull wage talks if Eskom chases disciplinary action against striking workers; Steinhoff and others face R185 billion class action lawsuit; and two former UJ executives ordered to pay back the R20 million they stole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":96065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-264101","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\/264101","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=264101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264113,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264101\/revisions\/264113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}