{"id":265325,"date":"2018-08-16T08:20:46","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T06:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=265325"},"modified":"2018-08-16T08:20:46","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T06:20:46","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-368","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/265325\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-368\/","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\/business-report\/economy\/deteriorating-finances-batter-the-sa-economy-16586611\">Ratings firm Moody&#8217;s has warned South Africa on its creeping economy, deteriorating public finances and weak domestic spending<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; saying that the performances will miss targets set by government. Analysts have indicated that positive sentiment around leadership change is now fully snuffed out, with reality setting in. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL5N1V656G\">Transnet&#8217;s CEO and two other senior officials have been told they will be suspended, the group&#8217;s chairman has announced<\/a><\/strong>. While the exact reasons for the suspensions have not been divulged, the announcement follows several probes into misconduct at the SOE &#8211; including a probe into over 1,000 locomotives that were acquired for R54 billion. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/stories\/the-trojan-horse-that-wheeled-r600m-out-of-state-owned-entities\/\">New investigations by amaBhungane have uncovered how R600 million was siphoned out of state-owned companies through the Guptas&#8217; network of contacts<\/a><\/strong>. A paper trail shows how Gupta partner Salim Essa scored contracts with SOEs through &#8216;business development&#8217; deals. [amaBhungane]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL5N1V65IG\">Wage talks at Eskom are again under threat as the power utility seeks arbitration over disciplinary measures for workers that embarked on illegal strikes.<\/a> <\/strong>Unions want the workers to be given a free pass &#8211; however, Eskom said it cannot do so. Striking workers sabotaged power supply which led to load shedding being implemented. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand slumped on Wednesday as ratings agency Moody\u2019s warned that the pace of fiscal consolidation in Africa\u2019s most industrialised nation had slowed and retail sales data disappointed, underlining the fragility of the economy. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was at R14.36 to the dollar, R18.28 to the pound and R16.36 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s economy is not in a good place, Moody&#8217;s warns; Transnet execs, including its CEO, are getting suspended; new investigations reveal how hundreds of millions of rands were siphoned from SOEs by the Guptas; and Eskom declares a dispute as wage talks again come under threat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":168963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-265325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265325","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=265325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265355,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265325\/revisions\/265355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}