{"id":299102,"date":"2019-02-13T07:25:29","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T05:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=299102"},"modified":"2019-02-13T07:25:29","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T05:25:29","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-492","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/299102\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-492\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/cosatu-embark-nationwide-strike\">Trade federation Cosatu will embark on a nation-wide strike today in an attempt to shutdown South Africa in protest of the plan to split Eskom<\/a><\/strong>. Unions refuse to accept the prospect of any job losses. [ENCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Due to the shortage of generating capacity, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KhuluPhasiwe\/status\/1095528332966404102\">Eskom will continue to implement stage 3 load shedding today from 08h00 until 23h00<\/a><\/strong>. The power utility said it will try to end rotational blackouts by the end of the week. [Eskom]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2019-02-12-gordhan-promises-action-to-keep-the-lights-on\">Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan says that external experts will have to be brought in to help manage the Eskom crisis<\/a>.<\/strong> Gordhan detailed several crisis-level issues at Eskom, including how costs have increased by seven times. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor has ended her state capture testimony in a far weaker position, after being grilled on<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2019-02-12-vytjie-mentor-wraps-up-testimony-after-a-day-of-weak-links-and-comebacks\/\"> her account of events &#8211; from almost a decade ago &#8211; which appeared to be full of holes and unsubstantiated claims<\/a><\/strong>. Mentor at times contradicted and refuted evidence at hand. [Daily Maverick]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand firmed on Tuesday, supported by rising risk appetite globally and recovering from a sharp selloff in the previous session when it was hit by a sudden escalation of controlled power cuts in South Africa. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was at R13.72 to the dollar, R17.70 to the pound and R15.55 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cosatu wants to shut down South Africa today; Eskom to implement stage 3 load shedding again; external experts will be brought in to help control the Eskom crisis; and Mentor ends her state capture testimony on the back foot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":47988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[5577],"class_list":["post-299102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-headling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299102","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=299102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299134,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299102\/revisions\/299134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}