{"id":326985,"date":"2019-07-03T07:14:25","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T05:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=326985"},"modified":"2019-07-03T07:14:25","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T05:14:25","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-585","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/326985\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-585\/","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:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/politics\/2019-07-03-eff-could-cripple-key-metros-joburg-and-tshwane\/\">South Africa&#8217;s major metros are at risk of being crippled, now that the fragile and volatile voting agreement between the EFF and the DA is being scuppered.<\/a> <\/strong>The EFF announced that it would not longer vote with the DA in metros like Tshwane and City of Joburg &#8211; and would abstain from voting in general. Following the 2016 local elections, the EFF became kingmaker, and booted the ANC out in favour of the DA. [Business Day]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>SARS is looking to pursue criminal charges against US consultancy Bain &amp; Co, which it says <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2019-07-02-sars-and-treasury-to-pursue-criminal-charges-against-bain-co\">developed a flawed operation system for the revenue service under Tom Moyane, which ultimately destroyed the group&#8217;s revenue collecting capabilities<\/a><\/strong>. New SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter says he is working hard to reverse the Bain &amp; Co operating model, to return the service to its former glory. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Municipalities are still counting the damage done by the looting of VBS bank, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2019\/07\/02\/auditor-general-municipalities-likely-to-lose-about-r1-8bn-from-vbs-heist\">with the Auditor General noting that the losses are at least at R1.8 billion &#8211; affecting Limpopo and the North-West.<\/a><\/strong> He said that the losses are most likely to impact basic services like infrastructure, where projects now have to stand at the back of the queue to acquire funding. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>DA leader Mmusi Maimane says he will <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/maimane-look-cape-town-homeless-fines\">engage with the City of Cape Town over its decision to issue homeless people with hefty fines for &#8216;blocking pathways&#8217; around the city.<\/a><\/strong> The party received backlash after news of the fines made headlines, with many describing it as anti-poor and cruel, particularly in icy winter months. Maimane said that the fines do not reflect DA policy of values. [ENCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand firmed against the US dollar on Tuesday, helped by a weaker greenback as optimism about easing trade tensions between the United States and China faded. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday, the rand was at R14.11 to the dollar, R17.76 to the pound and R15.93 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The EFF&#8217;s politicking threatens to collapse major metros; SARS wants Bain &#038; Co to face criminal charges for its role in breaking the revenue service; VBS looting made municipalities lose R1.8 billion; and Maimane says fining the homeless in Cape Town isn&#8217;t DA policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":313954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-326985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326985","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=326985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326989,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326985\/revisions\/326989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}