{"id":306480,"date":"2019-03-22T06:49:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T04:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=306480"},"modified":"2019-03-22T06:49:49","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T04:49:49","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-518","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/306480\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-518\/","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:\/\/twitter.com\/Eskom_SA\/status\/1108810185898905600\">Eskom has moved back to stage 2 load shedding during the day, following more than a week of stage 4 load shedding<\/a><\/strong>, which disrupted businesses and households. Stage 2 will commence from 09h00 to 23h00, though could again escalate should the utility run into any trouble. [Eskom]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The cancellation of a boiler heath assessment contract 18 months ago <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2019-03-22-00-a-suspect-contract-blew-the-fuse\">has been identified as one of the causes of Eskom&#8217;s power station maintenance backlog<\/a><\/strong>. However, a tender process for the contract that was supposed to be finalised this week has now been cancelled due to irregularities. [M&amp;G]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Former president <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2019-03-22-jacob-zuma-stands-by-his-discredited-russian-nuclear-deal\/\">Jacob Zuma says that the R1 trillion nuclear deal with Russia would have prevented South Africa&#8217;s energy crisis<\/a><\/strong>. Experts have said that the deal would have crippled South Africa. Opposition to the deal also resulted in the firing of 2 finance ministers which crashed SA&#8217;s markets. [BusinessLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>New details about <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2019-03-22-the-great-vbs-heist-former-ancyl-limpopo-leaders-r35-4m-spending-list-exposed\/\">an alleged VBS looter showed how he received over R35 million from the bank, which he spent on luxury cards, a house and his business<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; and now he&#8217;s claiming that the bank owes him R21 million more. A VBS investigation found the payments to him were irregular. [Daily Maverick]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand firmed nearly 1% on Wednesday, shrugging off the electricity crisis, as investors bet the US central bank will maintain a dovish stance. Markets were closed on Thursday for the public holiday.<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\"> On Friday the rand was at R14.21 to the dollar, R18.67 to the pound and R16.16 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom moves back to stage 2 load shedding during the day; a much needed Eskom maintenance tender has been cancelled due to irregularities; Zuma says his dodgy nuclear deal would have prevented the energy crisis; and this is how a VBS looter blew his money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":90548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-306480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-energy","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306480","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=306480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306482,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306480\/revisions\/306482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}