{"id":296610,"date":"2019-02-01T06:28:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T04:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=296610"},"modified":"2019-02-01T06:28:45","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T04:28:45","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-484","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/296610\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-484\/","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>Despite his name coming up several times in testimony before the commission, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2019-01-31-i-have-not-been-implicated-in-the-zondo-commission--says-jacob-zuma\/\">former president Jacob Zuma believes that he has not been implicated in state capture<\/a><\/strong>. Zuma has been identified as core to the state capture of the Gupta family, and was said to have benefitted from Bosasa bribes too. [TimesLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2019-02-01-00-the-bosasa-tally-r12-billion\">Over the last 15 years, Bosasa has extracted over R12 billion through government contracts<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; stretching to almost every department. It has been revealed over the past week or so that many of these contracts were secured through bribery and corruption. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Steinhoff bosses, including former CEO Markus Jooste, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-01-31\/pepkor-shows-steinhoff-paid-jooste-5-01-million-rand-for-2018\">scored massive multi-million rand salaries in the midst of the group&#8217;s accounting fraud saga.<\/a><\/strong> Jooste was paid R5 million for just 2 months of work before he quit &#8211; while his successor scored a R24 million salary after taking over. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/commoditiesNews\/idAFL5N1ZV61T\">Edgars owner Edcon says it needs R3 billion in financing over the next three years to help fix the business.<\/a> <\/strong>The group has been struggling for several years, and concerns have been raised about the job security of some 15,000 employees at 1,100 stores. [Reuters]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand gained to its highest in nearly six months on Thursday as the US central bank kept lending rates unchanged and hinted it would hold off on cutting interest rates, fuelling global demand for risk assets. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was at R13.30 to the dollar, R17.41 to the pound and R15.21 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite evidence and testimony before the commission, Jacob Zuma still says he hasn&#8217;t been implicated in state capture; Bosasa scored over R12 billion in state contracts over the last 15 years; Steinhoff pays its bosses millions &#8211; including ex-CEO Markus Jooste; and Edgars needs R3 billion in funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":295804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-296610","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\/296610","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=296610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296614,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296610\/revisions\/296614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}