{"id":330667,"date":"2019-07-23T07:04:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T05:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=330667"},"modified":"2019-07-23T07:04:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T05:04:09","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-599","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/330667\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-599\/","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>Following the Constitutional Court finding that <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2019\/07\/23\/sacp-questions-mkhwebane-s-fitness-to-hold-office-following-concourt-ruling\">Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane was both incompetent and dishonest, calls have started mounting for her removal.<\/a><\/strong> The Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac) has called for her to be impeached, while The South African Communist Party (SACP) says the ruling makes her unfit to hold office. There have also been calls to have her struck from the roll of advocates. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Treasury is expected to present its Special Appropriations Bill today in Parliament,<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/energy\/eskom-awaits-r60-billion-cash-injection-to-stay-afloat-29666466\"> which will reportedly detail plans to unlock almost R60 billion to bail out Eskom over the next two years.<\/a> <\/strong>The special bailout is on top of the R69 billion already promised to the group over the next three years. While the bailout is a good thing for the crisis-hit power utility, it will push government&#8217;s debt to GDP ration higher, which puts the country&#8217;s credit rating at risk. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The state capture commission has heard testimony of significant levels of irregular spending with the Estina dairy farm project &#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/free-state-govt-employees-under-fire-zondo-inquiry\">including blowing millions on tractors when some had already been donated, and inflated costs for standard building materials.<\/a><\/strong> Member of the Free State Legislature Roy Jankielsohn said then-Free State Premier Ace Magashule and former agriculture MEC, Mosebenzi Zwane, were aware of the irregularities but ignored it. [ENCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/355570\/home-affairs-to-partner-with-post-office-and-banks-to-improve-services\">The Department of Home Affairs is in talks with major banks and the Post Office to expand its services across the country.<\/a> <\/strong>Acting director general Thulani Mavuso said that it was not enough for the department to operate out of only 412 offices, and would like to leverage the 2,500 Post Offices, and banking networks. He said the department was dedicated to the project, but still needs to go through the necessary channels. [702]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand rallied on Monday, brushing aside local political ructions as investors increased bets on further monetary easing by the European and US central banks. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Tuesday the rand was at R13.92 to the dollar, R17.34 to the pound and R15.58 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Knives are out for &#8216;dishonest and incompetent&#8217; Mkhwebane; parliament to hear about government&#8217;s R60 billion bailout for Eskom; state capture commission hears how Magashule and Zwane ignored millions in irregular spending; and Home Affairs wants to work with the Post Office and banks to extend services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":140899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-330667","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\/330667","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=330667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330669,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330667\/revisions\/330669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}