{"id":267131,"date":"2018-08-24T07:42:46","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T05:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=267131"},"modified":"2018-08-24T11:04:13","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T09:04:13","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-374","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/267131\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-374\/","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\/2018-08-24-00-soes-battle-with-treasury-exposed\">National Treasury is expected to provide evidence of how state-owned companies tried to freeze it out of investigations into their links to the Guptas.<\/a><\/strong> The evidence will be presented before the Zondo commission into state capture, where testimony from primary whistleblower, Mcebisi Jonas, is also expected to be heard. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL2N1VE17K\">The South African government has summoned\u00a0US <em>charge d\u2019affaires<\/em> Jessye Lapenn, over tweets made by US president Donald Trump targetting SA&#8217;s land reform<\/a><\/strong>. President Cyril Ramaphosa&#8217;s office has accused Trump of stoking racial divisions and being ignorant of South African policies. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/energy\/unions-brace-for-fight-with-eskom-over-job-reductions-16716065\">Eskom will face a tough time from unions over its plans to let go of approximately 7,000 workers as part of a restructuring strategy.<\/a><\/strong> Unions say they will resist any attempts to cut the headcount, despite the fact that Eskom&#8217;s bloated workforce of over 48,000 people is costing the company billions it can&#8217;t afford. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/videos\/2018-08-24\/south-africa-reserve-bank-deputy-says-volatility-is-just-part-of-our-lives-video\">Reacting to the recent volatility brought about by land policy and international reactions to it, the Reserve Bank says that volatility is simply part of our lives.<\/a><\/strong> The central bank said that markets overreact and then settle, and similar trends have been seen in many markets, including the US. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand fell against the dollar on Thursday, hurt by comments by US President Donald Trump on Pretoria\u2019s land reform plans and a stronger greenback, while stocks ended slightly higher. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was at R14.37 to the dollar, R18.42 to the pound and R16.62 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa has summoned the head of the US embassy to answer for US president Donald Trump&#8217;s recent tweets; Treasury is expected to provide evidence to the state capture commission; Eskom is facing a looming war with unions over job cuts; and the Reserve Bank weighs in on recent rand volatility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":260913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-267131","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\/267131","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=267131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267139,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267131\/revisions\/267139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}