{"id":309502,"date":"2019-04-08T07:02:51","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T05:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=309502"},"modified":"2019-04-08T07:02:51","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T05:02:51","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-529","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/309502\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-529\/","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>While Eskom is promising to keep the lights on this winter and over the short term, South Africa&#8217;s energy crisis may hit new levels of bad over the next 5 years, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-04-08\/power-shortages-in-south-africa-could-get-a-whole-lot-worse\">as a quarter of Eskom&#8217;s stations are scheduled to reach their end of life and be decommissioned.<\/a><\/strong> [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2019-04-08-energy-regulator-nersa-wipes-out-eskoms-r69bn-bailout\/\">Energy regulator Nersa has wiped out the government bailout of R69 billion for Eskom.<\/a> <\/strong>Its calculation method in granting the power utility price hikes involved calculating Eskom&#8217;s ROI for each of the three coming years, then deducted the government bailout, effectively negating it. [Business Day]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A new forensic report has again fingered former Transnet and Eskom execs <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/news\/2019-04-07-charge-molefe-gama-and-singh-for-role-in-dodgy-transnet-locomotive-contract-urges-report\/\">Brain Molefe and Anoj Singh as leading the SOEs straight into the hands of Gupta-controlled companies<\/a><\/strong> which scored millions through irregular contracts. The report recommends legal action against them. [TimesLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The ANC is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/economy\/2019-04-07-anc-braces-for-no-deal-brexit\/\">hopeful that the UK will be able to make a deal by Friday around leaving the EU, but as it stands it is prepared for a no-deal Brexit<\/a><\/strong>. With the EU making up over three quarters of FDI in South Africa, a no-deal would impact some trade agreements. [BusinessLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand firmed on Friday, ending the first week of the new quarter more than 2% firmer as slow wage growth in the US helped maintain demand for emerging currencies.<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\"> On Monday the rand was at R14.14 to the dollar, R18.48 to the pound and R15.88 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s long-term electricity woes could get worse; Nersa has effectively undone government&#8217;s R69 billion Eskom bailout; new report details how Molefe and Singh handed Transnet to the Guptas; and the ANC is ready for a no-deal Brexit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":298832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-309502","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\/309502","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=309502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309520,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309502\/revisions\/309520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}