{"id":268581,"date":"2018-08-31T08:08:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T06:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=268581"},"modified":"2018-08-31T08:08:11","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T06:08:11","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-379","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/268581\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-379\/","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>New testimony in the state capture commission alleges that<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2018-08-31-00-van-rooyen-lost-no-time-in-the-treasury\"> four-day finance minister Des van Rooyen wasted no time during his short stint in leaking confidential information to the Guptas.<\/a><\/strong> It was alleged that Van Rooyen sent a presentation meant for cabinet to the Guptas and their associates on his first day on the job. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/markets\/rand-falters-on-decline-in-tax-collection-16814911\">National Treasury says that South Africa has recorded a Budget shortfall of R95.9\u202fbillion in the period &#8211; the largest budget deficit in 14 years<\/a><\/strong>. The Budget gap was largely due to poor tax collection on the back of weak economic growth. [Business Report]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/politics\/anc-eff-set-to-table-another-no-confidence-motion-against-sollymsimanga-16821356\">DA mayor in Tshwane Solly Msimanga survived a no confidence vote against him, but more are on the way, with the ANC and EFF vowing to get rid of the mayor<\/a><\/strong>. The EFF&#8217;s no confidence vote was dismissed on a technicality, after which the party staged a walkout, leaving the ANC&#8217;s motion to fail. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Government needs to bite the bullet and sell off South African Airways and its subsidiaries, according to an aviation expert, who says that <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/government-needs-sell-state-owned-airlines-expert\">there&#8217;s nothing to indicate that the latest attempt to turn things around at the airline will work any better than the last ten times.<\/a> <\/strong>SAA has cost taxpayers billions in bailouts. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand tumbled to its weakest in more than a week on Thursday as financial crises in Turkey and Argentina rattled sentiment toward emerging markets and stoked another wave of selling on the local currency. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was at R14.71 to the dollar, R19.16 to the pound and R17.18 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Des van Rooyen allegedly wasted no time leaking confidential information to the Guptas during his short stint at the finance ministry; Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga should get ready for more motions of no confidence; and there are renewed calls for government to sell off SAA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":106917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-268581","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\/268581","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=268581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268599,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268581\/revisions\/268599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}