{"id":419345,"date":"2020-07-24T07:29:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T05:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=419345"},"modified":"2020-07-24T07:29:08","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T05:29:08","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-846","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/419345\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-846\/","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 infections<\/a> have passed 15.2 million with the death toll at 623,000. In <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/419263\/408052-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-6093\/\">South Africa<\/a>, infections have passed the 400,000 mark, currently sitting at 408,052, while deaths have also passed a grim milestone, now over 6,000 at 6,093. Recoveries have increased to 236,260, leaving a balance of 165,699 active cases.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>School&#8217;s out<\/strong>: President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the closure of all public schools in the country for the next few weeks. Education minister Angie Motshekga said this will provide schools the opportunity to better prepare for more grades to return in August. The minister said that while research showed children from poorer communities were better off at school than at home during the crisis, the psychological stress from the pandemic was taking its toll. [<a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2020\/07\/24\/break-allows-schools-to-prepare-for-return-of-more-grades-motshekga\">EWN<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Excess deaths<\/strong>: Heath minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has acknowledged the findings by the South African Medical Research Council that there have been 17,000 excess deaths recorded over the last few months, pointing to perhaps more Covid-19 casualties than the current data shows. He said this could be because people have died before being tested for the virus, or people dying from things unrelated to the virus, or simply bad tracking. He said government would keep analysing the findings. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2020-07-24-zweli-mkhize-plays-down-discrepancy-in-reported-deaths\/\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>SAA stumble<\/strong>: Despite a commitment from government to mobilise&#8221; the funding of the new SAA, the airline is not in the clear yet. It all boils down to a letter: the business rescue practitioners say all conditions for the rescue plan to be adopted have been met, except for a satisfactory letter from government around commitments to cover the loans provided by guaranteed lenders. These lenders are owed R16.4 billion by government. A creditor meeting has been set up to extend the deadline for government to send the letter. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/saa-rescue-not-yet-out-of-the-woods-as-brps-schedule-creditors-meeting\/\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Corruption clampdown<\/strong>: Along with the closure of schools, president Ramaphosa also announced a corruption clampdown, setting the Special Investigation Unit loose to find those who are defrauding government through tender inflation, etc. However, this comes at the same time as opposition parties taking on the Justice department and NPA for having seemingly done nothing much in prosecuting high profile players who have been central to corruption accusations in the recent past. [<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/trending\/361251-corruption-crackdown-in-south-africa.html\">MyBroadband<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2020-07-24-mps-slam-npas-failure-to-prosecute-high-profile-corruption\/\">TimesLive<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: The local interest rate cut and China\u2019s anticipated response to the Houston consulate ultimatum issued by the US, are causing some uncertainty and caution within markets. Subsequently, the rand has given up some ground on the back of the cautiousness, and starts Friday at R16.65 to the dollar, R19.33 to the euro and R21.23 to the pound. Commentary by Peregrine Treasury Solutions. [<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>Schools must use shutdown time to better prepare for the return in August, education minister says; Mkhize responds to &#8216;excess deaths&#8217; data; SAA still has one more hurdle to cross in its rescue plan; and Ramaphosa wants a corruption clampdown, but little has been done about corruption from our most recent past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":404775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-419345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419345","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=419345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419375,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419345\/revisions\/419375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}