{"id":340823,"date":"2019-09-13T06:51:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T04:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=340823"},"modified":"2019-09-13T06:51:14","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T04:51:14","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-636","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/340823\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-636\/","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>A new study, which interviewed over 1,600 South Africans, has found that<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/business-report\/belt-and-road\/watch-south-africans-are-withholding-their-tax-payments-due-to-lack-of-trust-in-sars-study-reveals-32865306\"> a tax revolt has already begun in South Africa<\/a><\/strong>, with citizens purposefully withholding tax via tax avoidance and fraud, as a direct result of lost trust in government due to the state capture saga. The research found that trust in government had declined from 62% to 55% between the first and second quarters of the year, while trust in SARS was still low at 60%. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Airline expert Guy Leitch says that government&#8217;s <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/360665\/could-a-merger-be-on-the-cards-for-saa-mango-and-sa-express\">plan to possibly merge SAA, SA Express and Mango into one entity is a disaster waiting to happen<\/a><\/strong>. He said that SAA already cannot function on its own, and adding SA Express to the mix &#8211; which is also in financial crisis &#8211; is placing just another burden on SAA&#8217;s back. While cost saving is part of the process, there are also costs involved with the merger itself, which undermines this. [702]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>President Cyril Ramaphosa will be giving a UN general council meeting a skip this month, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2019-09-12-cyril-ramaphosa-to-skip-top-un-meeting-to-focus-on-problems-at-home\/\">so that he can be present and focus on critical issues back home in South Africa<\/a><\/strong>. International relations and co-operation minister Naledi Pandor will lead the delegation instead. Ramaphosa was accused of inaction during the recent swell of violence in the country &#8211; including the xenophobic attacks and outrage regarding violence towards women. [BusinessLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/shutdown-planned-in-sandton\">Thousands are expected to march in Sandton today in a planned shutdown of the city<\/a><\/strong>, protesting against gender-based violence in the country. The Johannesburg Metro Police Department has warned motorists to steer clear of the CBD to avoid major delays. Other organisations are also planning to protest alongside the Sandton shutdown, against the recent spate of xenophobic attacks in the country. [Enca]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand rallied in afternoon trade on Thursday as the European Central Bank\u2019s new stimulus measures and mutual concessions by the United States and China in their trade dispute buoyed risk appetite, while stocks also gained. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Friday the rand was at R14.60 to the dollar, R18.02 to the pound and R16.15 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A tax revolt is already happening in South Africa; why the plan to merge SAA and SA Express is a disaster waiting to happen; Ramaphosa to skip UN meeting to focus on issues back home; and thousands are expected to march today in a shutdown of Sandton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":295582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-340823","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\/340823","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=340823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340825,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340823\/revisions\/340825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}