{"id":265997,"date":"2018-08-20T08:02:35","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T06:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=265997"},"modified":"2018-08-20T08:02:35","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T06:02:35","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-370","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/265997\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-370\/","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:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/08\/20\/jonas-mentor-set-to-give-testimony-on-day-one-of-zondo-state-capture-inquiry\">The judicial inquiry into state capture is set to kick off today, with two of the earliest whistleblowers in the Gupta saga expected to give testimony on day one<\/a><\/strong>. Former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas, who blew the lid off state capture, and the outspoken\u00a0former ANC member Vytjie Mentor are due to speak. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Food prices are rising in South Africa on the back of the weakening rand and ongoing drought conditions &#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/capeargus\/news\/food-price-inflation-get-ready-to-pay-r3000-for-the-29-cheapest-items-16645702\">with\u00a0the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy expecting a basket of the cheapest 29 items to hit R3,000 in 2019<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0The average price for the basket was R2,714 in 2017, and R2,764 between January and April 2018. The 2019 projection is R2,928. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The City of Tshwane&#8217;s Wi-Fi project is under question after documents revealed that the city reversed its decision to appoint a cheaper, recommended supplier, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/city-press.news24.com\/News\/tshwanes-dodgy-wi-fi-tender-20180818\">and replaced it with one that charged as much as three times more for the same services.<\/a><\/strong> The city said there were discrepancies with the recommended supplier&#8217;s bid which required re-evaluation. [City Press]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/police-raid-malema-bodyguards-office\">Police have raided the office of EFF leader Julius Malema&#8217;s body guard, as part of an investigation in to an incident where he handed a rifle to the party leader<\/a><\/strong>, which was then discharged at a rally. Charges have been laid against both Malema and his body guard over the incident. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Two bits of news upset markets in Friday, with continues pressure on the Turkish lira still impacting emerging markets, including South Africa, and talk of nationalising the Reserve Bank feeding a negative outlook locally. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Monday the rand was trading at R14.69 to the dollar, R18.73 to the pound and R16.79 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The judicial inquiry into state capture kicks off today; food prices are on their way up thanks to the weakening rand; and Tshwane&#8217;s Wi-Fi contract comes into question after a cheaper supplier was sidelined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":266029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-265997","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\/265997","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=265997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266035,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265997\/revisions\/266035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}