{"id":321517,"date":"2019-06-05T07:11:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T05:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=321517"},"modified":"2019-06-05T07:11:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T05:11:55","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-566","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/321517\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-566\/","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:\/\/af.reuters.com\/article\/southAfricaNews\/idAFL8N23B29A\">The ANC is once again sending mixed messages about the plan to nationalise the Reserve Bank.<\/a> <\/strong>Parts of the party aligned to Ace Magashule are putting out communications that a plan to change the mandate of the central bank is in place &#8211; sparking fears of a loss of independence and ability to combat corruption &#8211; while those aligned to president Ramaphosa say there is no such plan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The shock GDP data on Tuesday reflects the severe struggles of<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/350769\/south-africans-are-getting-poorer-and-poorer-at-an-increasing-rate\"> South African consumers, who are getting poorer and poorer at a faster and faster rate<\/a><\/strong>, says economist Mike Schussler. The figures show there is no confidence in the South African market from any sector &#8211; be it consumers, investors or businesses. [702]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Aside from the SARS retirement issue, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2019-06-04-sars-pension-investigation-is-only-the-beginning-the-four-gordhan-issues-in-the-public-protectors-sights\/\">Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane says she is investigating public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan on four other issues<\/a><\/strong>: Tender irregularity relating to SARS IT company Interfront; the so-called SARS &#8216;rogue unit&#8217;; the Integrated Financial Management System under his watch; and Gordhans interactions with the Gupta family.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Mineral Resources and Energy minister Gwede Mantashe says <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2019-06-04-gwede-mantashe-backs-coal-and-nuclear-in-sas-energy-mix\/\">the country needs to move beyond the coal vs renewables debate and use every technology at its disposal to ensure power security<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; including the continued use of coal and also nuclear energy in the mix. His comments come as financial institutions make very specific moves away from financing new coal projects in the country. [Business Day]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand slumped on Tuesday after data showed the worst quarterly economic contraction in a decade at the start of 2019, while stocks gained.<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\"> On Wednesday, the rand was at R14.64 to the dollar, R18.60 to the pound and R16.48 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Internal ANC politics spills over to a fight over the Reserve Bank as SA&#8217;s GDP slumps; shock GDP data shows that everyday South Africans are getting poorer, faster; the Public Protector outlines four investigations into Pravin Gordhan after insisting she&#8217;s not unfairly targeting him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":144959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-321517","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\/321517","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=321517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321525,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321517\/revisions\/321525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}