{"id":361292,"date":"2019-12-11T07:18:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T05:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=361292"},"modified":"2019-12-11T07:23:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T05:23:58","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-698","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/361292\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-698\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fin24.com\/Economy\/eskom-multiple-systems-failures-but-grid-remains-stable-and-wont-collapse-20191211-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eskom says it is suffering from multiple system failures at power stations around the country, but that the grid remains stable and won\u2019t collapse.<\/a><\/strong> Internal Eskom status updates reveal that a number of power stations across the country &#8211; including Koeberg nuclear power station, three turbines at two open-cycle gas turbines on the west and south coasts &#8211; have recently suffered a series of breakdowns, shutdowns and planned outages. [Fin24]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2019-12-11-cyril-ramaphosa-and-eskom-talk-as-two-years-of-blackouts-loom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">President Cyril Ramaphosa cut short an international trip on Tuesday to meet with the Eskom board, a day after the power utility plunged the country into stage 6 load-shedding.<\/a> <\/strong>This came as Eskom warned South Africans to expect power cuts for at least another two years. [TimesLive]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/health\/2019-12-10-cms-move-to-scrap-health-insurance-products-is-unconstitutional\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">South Africa&#8217;s new medical aid changes are unconstitutional and will have potentially &#8216;catastrophic consequences&#8217; for consumers, warns Day 1 Health CEO Richard Blackman.<\/a> <\/strong>The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) recently announced that no more exemptions to the Medical Schemes Act will be granted for entities that offer less cover than the law requires after March 2021. [BusinessDay]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dispatchlive.co.za\/news\/2019-12-10-its-official-grahamstown-is-makhanda\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A court bid to set aside Art and Culture minister Nathi Mthethwa\u2019s decision to change the name of Grahamstown to Makhanda has failed.<\/a><\/strong> In its ruling on Tuesday, the court found that Mthethwa had acted in strict accordance with all consultative and other requirements before deciding to change the name. [Daily Dispatch]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The rand broke out of the tight trading range witnessed over the past week as markets digested the fact that a foundation agreement between China and the US will, in all likelihood, not be reached prior to the implementation of new tariffs at the weekend, says Bianca Botes, treasury partner at Peregrine Treasury Solutions. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday, the rand is trading at R14.79 to the dollar, R19.44 to the pound and R16.41 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom says there are multiple points of failure but the electricity grid won&#8217;t collapse; Expect load shedding for another two years; South Africa&#8217;s new medical aid changes are unconstitutional and could be &#8216;catastrophic&#8217; for consumers; and Grahamstown is now officially Makhanda. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":343251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-361292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361292","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=361292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361308,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361292\/revisions\/361308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}