{"id":278383,"date":"2018-10-19T08:14:22","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T06:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=278383"},"modified":"2018-10-19T08:14:22","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T06:14:22","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-413","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/278383\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-413\/","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.fin24.com\/Budget\/ramaphosas-economic-stimulus-package-to-dominate-mini-budget-20181019-2\">Analysts are expecting president Cyril Ramaphosa&#8217;s economic stimulus package to feature prominently in the medium-term budget policy speech next week<\/a><\/strong>. A big part of the plan is to reprioritise R50 billion in the current budget &#8211; and it&#8217;s these details analysts anticipate to hear. [News24]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2018\/10\/19\/vbs-bank-to-retrench-some-employees-sell-assets-clear-head-office\">VBS Mutual Bank is retrenching staff and looking to sell assets amid investigations<\/a><\/strong> into R2 billion being looted from the group. 94 staff members have reportedly signed retrenchment notices. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba is to be pulled before the courts <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/the-star\/news\/wheres-the-r794m-gigaba-17550670\">to explain how his department&#8217;s failure to pay a R67 million IT bill has ballooned to R794 million.<\/a> <\/strong>The department failed to pay the bill for a new IT hub, which resulted in the company hired being forced to shut down, and lay off 150 staff. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N1WY518\">Financial group Investec has acquired a stake in private college group\u00a0Richfield Holdings.<\/a> <\/strong>The group operates 40 campuses in the country, and says that the Investec investment will allow the group to expand even further. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand retreated on Thursday as minutes from the US Federal Reserve\u2019s September meeting striking a hawkish tone bolstered the dollar and dampened some of the enthusiasm for emerging currencies. <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, R18.71 to the pound and R16.47 to the euro<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ramaphosa&#8217;s stimulus package expected to feature prominently in the MTBPS; VBS is retrenching workers in the wake of the R2 billion looting scandal; Home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba called to answer a R794 million question; and Investec pumps money into private schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":259409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-278383","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\/278383","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=278383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278387,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278383\/revisions\/278387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}