{"id":290964,"date":"2018-12-14T07:45:25","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T05:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=290964"},"modified":"2018-12-14T07:45:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T05:45:25","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-453","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/290964\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-453\/","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>President Cyril Ramaphosa is not keen on a debt swap plan with Eskom, which will see national government take R100 billion worth of the power utility&#8217;s debt onto its own books. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N1YI68F\">Ramaphosa said the plan would just put the entire country into a worse debt spiral<\/a><\/strong>, adding that other alternatives to Eskom&#8217;s liquidity problems would have to be found. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2018-12-14-minimum-wage-act--bungle-leaves-workers-exposed-to-employers-dodging-new-law\/\">A &#8220;human error&#8221; in the new national minimum wage bill back-dated the wrong clause to apply from 1 May 2017, which could damage the very people it&#8217;s meant to protect.<\/a><\/strong> The retroactive date was supposed to apply to the clause giving workers the right take on employers who changed employment contracts and conditions in response to the new NMW. [Business Day]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2018-12-14-00-text-messages-show-brazen-vbs-bribes\">The VBS looting scandal continues, with new claims emerging of blatant bribery involving the bank and government officials in Limpopo.<\/a> <\/strong>The allegations are contained in court document, saying that the officials demanded expensive gifts and a share in the money looted from the bank. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizcommunity.com\/Article\/196\/39\/185502.html\">Ndalo Media, which produces magazines like Elle, Destiny and SAA&#8217;s Sawubona, will be shutting its doors in January 2019<\/a><\/strong>, following cash flow issues that could not be resolved. The media house reportedly could not pay salaries in November. [Bizcommunity]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand retreated on Thursday, giving up early small gains with traders cautious going into year-end and demand for riskier assets globally fading after the European Central Bank struck a tentative tone on economic growth. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday, the rand was at R14.24 to the dollar, R17.99 to the pound and R16.18 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ramaphosa says government taking on R100 billion of Eskom&#8217;s debt is bad idea; the new national minimum wage bill has a small problem, with big consequences; the VBS looting scandal continues, with fresh allegations of blatant corruption; and Destiny, Elle and Sawubona publisher Ndalo Media is closing its doors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":290098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-290964","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\/290964","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=290964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290970,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290964\/revisions\/290970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}