{"id":276087,"date":"2018-10-09T08:17:32","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T06:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=276087"},"modified":"2018-10-09T08:17:32","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T06:17:32","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-405","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/276087\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-405\/","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\/2018-10-08-basa-nene-fears-worsening-jittery-markets\">Uncertainty over the future of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene has left markets jittery, as pressure mounts for the minister to resign<\/a><\/strong>. Nene reportedly asked president Cyril Ramaphosa to relieve him of his duties, though the president said he was unaware of such a request. Nene confessed to having regular contact with the Gupta family before the state capture scandal broke. [M&amp;G]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N1WO1FO\">The International Monetary Fund has cut South Africa&#8217;s growth forecast for the next two years, calling for reforms.<\/a> <\/strong>The 2018 forecast has been cut from 1.5% to 0.8%, while the IMF urged government to bring policy certainty, and improve the efficiency of state-owned companies. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/city-press.news24.com\/Business\/sarb-wants-more-banks-and-better-audit-committees-in-sa-20181008\">The South African Reserve Bank wants more competition in the banking sector, and is willing to issue new licences &#8211; though with caution.<\/a><\/strong> The central bank said that over the past decade the &#8216;big four&#8217; banks&#8217; market share has decreased from 93% to 85%, and it expects this to drop to 75% over the next decade. [City Press]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/zulu-king-announces-partnership-afriforum\">Zulu king Goodwill Zwelenthini is partnering with Afrikaner rights group AfriForum, in a united push against land expropriation without compensation<\/a><\/strong>. The Zulu king has demanded that the government give him assurances &#8211; in writing &#8211; that the government won&#8217;t take his land. His trust owns almost a third of all land in KwaZulu Natal. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand weakened more than 1% on Monday over a newspaper report that Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene had asked President Cyril Ramaphosa to sack him rocked the currency. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday, the rand was trading at R14.85 to the dollar, R19.45 to the pound and R17.07 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Markets are rattled on news the South Africa might lose its finance minister; the IMF cuts South Africa&#8217;s growth forecast; the SARB wants more competition in the banking sector; and the Zulu King is teaming up with AfriForum to oppose land redistribution without compensation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":255019,"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-276087","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\/276087","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=276087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276095,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276087\/revisions\/276095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}