{"id":295030,"date":"2019-01-24T07:40:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T05:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=295030"},"modified":"2019-01-24T07:40:03","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T05:40:03","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-478","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/295030\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-478\/","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\/national\/2019-01-24-officials-looted-millions-in-land-reform-scam\/\">Fraud on a massive scale has been uncovered by the SIU in government&#8217;s land reform programme<\/a> <\/strong>&#8211; with the unit recommending that 42 officials be prosecuted. According to the SIU report, thousands of supposed beneficiaries of the programme weren&#8217;t even aware of it, and had not even visited the land in question. [Business Day]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/africa\/south-africa-will-help-our-neighbour-zimbabwe-18943175\">A bailout for Zimbabwe is still very much on the table, according to International Relations minister Lindiwe Sisulu &#8211; as long as it is affordable.<\/a> <\/strong>Treasury has previously rejected financial relief for SA&#8217;s northern neighbour, saying that we simply cannot afford it. However, government officials are adamant that we will go to their aid. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2019\/01\/24\/corruption-charges-against-duduzane-zuma-to-be-officially-withdrawn\">The NPA is expected to provisionally withdraw corruption charges against former president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s son, Duduzane<\/a><\/strong>, who was implicated in blackmailing officials with the Gupta family. Legal analysts have said the withdrawal points to a <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/335167\/there-is-a-profound-lack-of-legal-thinking-in-duduzane-zuma-s-corruption-case\">lack of strategy between the NPA and investigators<\/a><\/strong> when tackling state capture allegations. [EWN, 702]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/mymoney\/moneyweb-tax\/the-carbon-tax-is-coming\/\">South Africa&#8217;s carbon tax will kick in from 1 June 2019 &#8211; but many businesses are not ready for it.<\/a> <\/strong>Analysts have noted that delays in adopting the laws have led to complacency among corporates &#8211; while the final regulations are incomplete or outstanding. [Moneyweb]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The South African rand rallied against a weaker dollar on Wednesday as top trading partner China pledged more fiscal spending to support its own slowing economy. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Thursday the rand was at R13.84 to the dollar, R18.09 to the pound and R15.76 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Massive fraud uncovered in government&#8217;s land reform programme; a Zimbabwe bailout is definitely on the cards; the NPA is expected to withdraw charges against Duduzane Zuma; and companies are not ready for the carbon tax, analysts say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":294352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-295030","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\/295030","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=295030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295036,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295030\/revisions\/295036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}