{"id":296974,"date":"2019-02-04T06:46:40","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T04:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=296974"},"modified":"2019-02-04T06:46:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T04:46:40","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-485","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/296974\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-485\/","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>South Africa&#8217;s Department of International Relations and Cooperation has responded to the letter reportedly sent from five countries to president Cyril Ramaphosa &#8211; by telling them to use the proper channels. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2019-02-03-sas-answer-to-embassies-worries-please-use-the-proper-channels\/\">Minister Lindiwe Sisulu says the letter broke protocol, and has ordered a demarche on the ambassadors.<\/a> <\/strong>[TimesLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The ambassadors of the countries involved, however, were surprised by the story, saying that <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2019-02-04-investor-countries-june-2018-memo-to-pretoria-sparks-february-2019-diplomatic-incident\/\">they did not sign a letter to Ramaphosa, but that the contents were part of a discussion paper on topics to be discussed when Ramaphosa was on his investment drive.<\/a><\/strong> The memo was from June 2018 &#8211; eight months ago. [Daily Maverick]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The EFF has launched its election manifesto with a strong focus on land and corruption. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/shivambu-no-eff-members-implicated-any-wrongdoing\">Deputy leader Floyd Shivambu says the party is in a position to tackle corruption because no EFF member has been implicated in wrongdoing<\/a><\/strong>. This, despite Shivambu himself being implicated in the VBS looting scandal. [eNCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/companies-and-deals\/edcon-continues-downsizing-stores-as-it-awaits-r3bn-lifeline\/\">Edcon has closed 115 stores over the 18 months in a bid to cut costs.<\/a> <\/strong>The group is seeking R3 billion in financing to be able to turn the business around. The group has reduced its retail space by 7&amp;, and plans to keep reducing it by 5-7% each year over the next few years. [Moneyweb]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The South African rand weakened on Friday, retreating from a near six-month high, as weak economic data at home and shrinking factory activity in China dampened risk demand. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Monday the rand was at R13.36 to the dollar, R17.47 to the pound and R15.29 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dirco minister Lindiwe Sisulu has slammed the letter sent to Ramaphosa, saying it breaks diplomatic protocol; but the ambassadors who reportedly sent it say it wasn&#8217;t a letter, but a discussion memo sent in June 2018; The EFF&#8217;s memo has a focus on corruption; and Edcon has shut down 115 stores.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":212807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-296974","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\/296974","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=296974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296976,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296974\/revisions\/296976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}