{"id":392287,"date":"2020-04-24T07:12:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T05:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=392287"},"modified":"2020-04-24T07:12:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T05:12:37","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-783","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/392287\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-783\/","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<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Coronavirus<\/strong>: Global coronavirus infections have hit 2,725,920, with deaths moving towards 200,000 (191,061 at latest count). 745,905 people have recovered, but 1,788,954 cases remain active, with 58,676 in serious or critical condition. In South Africa, there are now 3,953 cases, with deaths up to 75. Recoveries sit at 1,473 &#8211; meaning the country is dealing with 2,405 active cases.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Sort of open<\/strong>: President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that South Africa will start getting back to normal &#8211; but will do so very cautiously and very slowly. The president announced that we will start easing lockdown restrictions in a bid to reignite the economy from 1 May &#8211; but this will happen in phases, with lockdown restrictions remaining in place on various levels. These levels will be determined by national, provincial and municipal threat levels, which will change based on the rate of coronavirus infection in the country. [<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/392241\/south-africa-to-begin-phased-lifting-of-lockdown-from-30-april-heres-what-will-happen\/\">BusinessTech<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Power problem:<\/strong> While the easing of the lockdown may spell good news for the economy, experts have warned that, as people start returning to work, the same issues we faced before the lockdown are likely to continue &#8211; which includes the power issues at Eskom. The power utility itself has said it has been unable to do long-form maintenance due to the restrictions, and so load shedding may well be back. It likely won&#8217;t be back immediately, but as demand ramps as the lockdown eases, pressure on the grid is inevitable. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/381688\/listen-will-load-shedding-continue-after-lockdown\">702<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Grounded:<\/strong> With an SAA liquidation looking increasingly likely, the situation looks bleak for employees at the airline&#8217;s subsidiaries, including SAA Techinical &#8211; which has told staff that it is unable to pay full salaries in April, due to a lack of bailout from government. 2,319 workers will receive only 50% of their salaries, according to reports, while the subsidary itself has been earmarked for possible sale to help keep SAA afloat. The airline administrators say it does not have enough money to meet any financial obligations past 30 April. [<a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/article\/2020-04-23-saa-technical-flies-into-salary-storm\/\">Mail &amp; Guardian<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Price hikes:<\/strong> Dis-Chem has been referred to the Competition Tribunal for hiking the price of face masks during the coronavirus pandemic &#8211; with prices jumping between 43% and 261% between February and March, the Competition Commission reports. The commission said it investigated Dis-Chem after receiving several complaints, and found that prices for surgical masks jumped from R43.47 to R156.95 &#8211; while input costs remained the same. [<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CompComSA\/status\/1253325291381915649\">CompCom<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets:<\/strong> South Africans breathed a sigh of relief last night to learn that we will prepare to open the economy on a phased basis on the 1st of May. Exceptionally poor data from the EU, coupled with the approval of the implementation of an emergency fund for the bloc, reaffirmed the economic fallout of the pandemic, and continued to erode risk appetite. The rand continued its trend of trading weaker in the US sessions, moving a leg weaker as we head towards a local long weekend. On Friday the rand was at R19.08 to the dollar, R23.56 to the pound and R20.54 to the euro. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.xe.com\/currencyconverter\/convert\/?Amount=1&amp;From=USD&amp;To=ZAR\">XE<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa will soon start its slow journey to being open for business once again; experts warn that load shedding could return as people get back to work; SAA is nearing liquidation &#8211; and its subsidiaries are suffering too; Dis-Chem busted for hiking prices on essential goods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":252967,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-392287","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\/392287","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=392287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392303,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392287\/revisions\/392303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}