{"id":368882,"date":"2020-01-29T07:43:31","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T05:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=368882"},"modified":"2020-01-29T07:47:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T05:47:07","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-724","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/368882\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-724\/","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>Analysts have describe the Development Bank&#8217;s funding of SAA &#8211; one state company funding another &#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbcafrica.com\/videos\/2020\/01\/28\/this-is-the-cost-on-dbsa-for-bailing-out-saa\/\">as effectively moving money from one hand the to the next<\/a><\/strong>, with SAA&#8217;s business rescue now just looking like another bailout. The move to give SAA a R3.5 billion lifeline came as a surprise, but is likely as a result of National Treasury being unable to find the promised funds (R2 billion), and thus enlisting the DBSA to step in. [CNBC Africa]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/368878\/moodys-says-its-too-early-to-assess-south-africas-progress\/\">Moody&#8217;s says it is still too early to tell whether South Africa will change direction, following the group&#8217;s outlook change to negative in 2019<\/a>. The group said that the negative outlook was &#8216;still fresh&#8217;, and the current state of the economy &#8211; and government policy &#8211; has not changed much for the better or worse since the change. Many economists and analysts expect South Africa to be cut to full junk in 2020, with the next ratings review by Moody&#8217;s expected in March. [Bloomberg]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Eskom says that the risk of load shedding remains low,<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Eskom_SA\/status\/1222388993666572288\/photo\/1\"> despite it still being unable to bring unplanned outages to below 9,500MW<\/a><\/strong>. On Wednesday, outages were just over 12,300MW, with the group saying that lower demand, the use of emergency reserves, and additional generation from Kusile and Medupi being the reason why the lights are on despite the high level of outages. Open cycle gas turbines are currently being used to meet demand. [Eskom]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2020-01-28-mkhwebane-moves-to-halt-grossly-unfair-impeachment-process\/\">Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is fighting back against Parliament&#8217;s attempt to have her conduct reviewed and possibly have her removed<\/a><\/strong>. She has described the process adopted by Parliament to review her fitness to hold office as &#8220;grossly unfair&#8221;, even going as far as to call it unconstitutional. She has honed in on there not being something in the process to ensure there is no conflict of interest &#8211; claiming that those subject to her investigations are deeply involved in the process to have her removed. [Mail &amp; Guardian]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa\u2019s rand clawed back losses on Tuesday, firming slightly alongside local bonds as a selloff triggered by the spread of the coronavirus was halted by technical factors curbing big movements in either direction. The rand\u2019s run beyond the 14.60 technical level did not last as buyers returned, although some traders warned the recovery could be temporary as investors continue to assess opportunities and the impact of the coronavirus. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">On Wednesday the rand was at R14.55 to the dollar, R18.94 to the pound and R16.02 to the euro.<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Development Bank is doing Treasury&#8217;s job for it, analysts say; Moody&#8217;s says it&#8217;s too soon to tell whether South Africa is headed for junk; Eskom says load shedding is not likely today, as it once again turns to open cycle gas turbines to generate power; and Mkhwebane fights back against Parliament&#8217;s bid to oust her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":14079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-368882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368882","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=368882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":368908,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368882\/revisions\/368908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}