{"id":269385,"date":"2018-09-05T08:03:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T06:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=269385"},"modified":"2018-09-05T08:03:08","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T06:03:08","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-382","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/269385\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-382\/","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.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/economy\/2018-09-04-goldman-sachs-revises-sa-growth-for-2018-downwards-following-downside-surprise-in-gdp\/\">Following South Africa&#8217;s shock GDP figures for the second quarter of the year, Goldman Sachs has revised its economic outlook for the country downwards, from 2% to just 0.8%<\/a><\/strong>. Analysts have warned that the negative Q2 GDP figures could indicate further declines in Q3 and perhaps a full year recession. [Business Day]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste is expected before Parliament today &#8211; meanwhile, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-09-04\/steinhoff-ex-ceo-s-day-of-reckoning-delayed-by-police-dispute\">the criminal case against him has been delayed due to the South African Police Service allegedly dragging its feet.<\/a><\/strong> Steinhoff shareholders have been frustrated with the Hawks&#8217; apparent reluctance to charge Jooste. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Now that South Africa&#8217;s listeria crisis is over, Tiger Brands, which was at the centre of the outbreak, says it has exhausted investigations trying to figure out how the disease got into its factories.<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/09\/05\/tiger-brands-doubts-it-will-find-origin-of-listeria-bacteria-at-factories\"> The company says that the source will likely never be found.<\/a><\/strong> The department of health said this week it is mulling legal action. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The Inkatha Freedom Party <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/317987\/ifp-says-sa-should-be-talking-about-the-death-penalty\">wants to open up the debate around bringing back the death penalty in South Africa for heinous and violent crimes.<\/a><\/strong> The party said it has written to the constitutional review committee, asking to initiate a national discourse on the matter. [702]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0South Africa\u2019s rand fell as much as 3% on Tuesday as the economy slipped into a technical recession in the second quarter and missed economists\u2019 expectations. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was trading at R15.34 to the dollar, R19.72 to the pound and R17.78 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Optimistic growth forecasts for South Africa are being revised down, following the recession announcement; former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste will be in Parliament, while his criminal charges stutter; Tiger Brands says the listeria origin in SA will likely never be found; and the IFP wants to open debate on bringing back the death penalty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":70463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-269385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269385","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=269385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269393,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269385\/revisions\/269393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}