{"id":345298,"date":"2019-10-09T07:12:20","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T05:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=345298"},"modified":"2019-10-09T07:12:20","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T05:12:20","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-653","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/345298\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-653\/","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.enca.com\/business\/four-soes-waste-over-r1-billion\">Four state-owned companies have together amasses a wasteful expenditure bill of over R1 billion alone<\/a><\/strong>, according to the office of the Auditor General &#8211; with the full extent of the problem not yet known, as the likes of SAA are not a going concern, so no financial statements are available. Worse yet, those responsible are not being held to account, the office said, with the problematic entities continuing to receive billions in government bailouts. [ENCA]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Old Mutual has begged the court not to send its board members to prison, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/companies-and-deals\/old-mutual-pleads-for-its-board-members-not-to-be-jailed\/\">if found guilty of contempt of court for blocking CEO Peter Moyo from returning to work<\/a><\/strong>. The group said that such a punishment would be excessive and inappropriate, adding that it would be more suitable to deliver a suspended sentence or impose a fine. The board has blocked Moyo from returning to work three times, leading to his application to hold them in contempt of court. [Moneyweb]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/politics\/i-am-being-targeted-because-i-am-close-to-zuma-dudu-myeni-alleges-34393987\">Former SAA chair Dudu Myeni is claiming that the court action against her is politically motivated<\/a> <\/strong>&#8211; all because she is close to former president Jacob Zuma. Outa and the SAA Pilot&#8217;s Association are trying to have courts declare her a delinquent director over the years of maladministration and inappropriate interference at SAA, which did severe damage to the SOE. Myeni denies any wrongdoing. [IOL]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2019\/10\/09\/sahrc-denies-favouring-black-people-when-handing-cases\">The South African Human Rights Commission denies that it holds a double standard when dealing with cases involving white and black South Africans.<\/a><\/strong> Opposition parties have accused the group of letting black offenders off the hook while aggressively pursuing white people, especially when it comes to cases of hate speech. The parties raised the case of EFF leader Julius Malema&#8217;s threat of the mass killing of white people being dismissed by the SAHRC as not hate speech. [EWN]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand and stocks weakened on Tuesday as concerns over the upcoming US-China trade talks and escalating tensions between London and Brussels sparked a flight to safety, denting appetite for riskier but high-yielding assets. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday, the rand was at R15.27 to the dollar, R18.65 to the pound and R16.74 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In financial distress, but still wasting billions &#8211; that is the state of South Africa&#8217;s SOEs; Old Mutual pleads to the court not to send its board to jail; under-fire former SAA chair Dudu Myeni says she&#8217;s being targeted because she&#8217;s close to Zuma; and the SAHRC denies that it holds a double standard on hate speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":74754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-345298","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\/345298","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=345298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345308,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345298\/revisions\/345308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}