{"id":407593,"date":"2020-06-15T07:25:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T05:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=407593"},"modified":"2020-06-15T07:25:29","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T05:25:29","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-818","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/407593\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-818\/","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> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecdc.europa.eu\/en\/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases\">Global<\/a> coronavirus cases have increased to 7.8 million confirmed cases, with the death toll up to 430,000. In <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/407531\/70038-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-1480\/\">South Africa<\/a>, the country recorded a record daily increase of 4,302\u202c new cases, taking the total confirmed up to 70,038. Deaths have risen to 1,480, while recoveries have also increased to 38,531, giving a balance of 30,027 active cases.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pay increases:<\/strong> Joburg&#8217;s city councillors want to give themselves a 6.4% salary increase &#8211; a controversial move at a time that many of the city&#8217;s residents have lost income due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The increases are in line with what was <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/402573\/salary-increase-for-municipal-workers-in-july-but-unions-also-want-covid-19-danger-pay\/\">negotiated<\/a> by by public service bargaining councils, which secured a CPI+1.25% increase starting from July 2020 (6.25%). However, residents say that service delivery has been negatively affected by the coronavirus outbreak, so it would be like rewarding work not done. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/joburg-city-councillors-want-to-give-themselves-outrageous-increases\/\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stranded:<\/strong> 45 South Africans were left stranded after the &#8216;last SAA flight&#8217; out of Europe for repatriation was unable to accommodate all of those who wanted to return home. The passengers had all fully paid for the ticket home, but had to be booked into hotels &#8211; however this was at their own expense. SAA said it was a government service, thus was not liable for the costs. Government, meanwhile, has also tried to avoid taking responsibility. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/2020-06-14-45-south-africans-including-olympic-athlete-left-at-frankfurt-airport-after-saa-says-it-cannot-take-all\/\">TimesLive<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2020-06-14-last-saa-repatriation-flight-out-of-europe-leaves-45-behind\/#gsc.tab=0\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Extortionate:<\/strong> The commercial property sector has called on the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to cap property rates charged by municipalities, calling them &#8216;extortionate&#8217;. The sector has been one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide lockdown, with many businesses struggling to keep revenues up. Proposed changes will see property rates climb even higher, exacerbating the pain. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za.\/bt\/business-and-economy\/2020-06-14-plea-to-cap-property-rates-as-cities-abuse-tax\/\">BusinessLive<\/a> &#8211; paywall]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Nuclear option<\/strong>: Despite wide consensus that a nuclear energy build for South Africa is not affordable, the energy department is moving ahead with issuing a request for information for goods and services involved in such a program. South Africa said last month that it plans to expand nuclear capacity within the next five years. The country currently has a single nuclear plant. A drive to build more nuclear energy plans died down after Jacob Zuma stepped down as president &#8211; but it remains in the country&#8217;s integrated energy plan.[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2020-06-14\/south-africa-requests-information-to-expand-nuclear-power\">Bloomberg<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets:<\/strong> The South African rand recovered slightly on Friday as investors returned to riskier assets following a steep selloff a day earlier. Investors in South African assets have tended to overlook a grim domestic economic outlook in recent weeks, focusing on government measures to cushion the blow from Covid-19 and the attractive yields of local government debt over worrying fiscal metrics or recent credit rating downgrades. On Monday the rand was at R17.19 to the dollar, R21.53 to the pound and R19.37 to the euro. Commentary by Reuters. [<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>Councillors want pay hikes in the time of Covid-19; South Africans have been left stranded overseas, after flights back home were overbooked; commercial property owners push back against &#8216;extortionate&#8217; rate hike proposals; and government is pushing ahead with its nuclear energy plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-407593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407593","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=407593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407603,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407593\/revisions\/407603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}