{"id":445680,"date":"2020-11-04T07:55:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T05:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=445680"},"modified":"2020-11-04T07:55:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T05:55:03","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-917","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/445680\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-917\/","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 Covid-19<\/a> infections have hit 47.1 million confirmed, with the death toll reaching 1,207,000. In <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrZweliMkhize\/status\/1323701634694815747\/photo\/1\">South Africa<\/a>, there have been 1,241 new cases, taking the total reported to 728,836. Deaths have reached 19,539 (a daily increase of 74), while recoveries have climbed to 659,249, leaving the country with a balance of 50,048 active cases.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Bailouts<\/strong>: The Financial Fiscal Commission has criticised government&#8217;s plan to rescue and restructure failed airline SAA, homing in on the fact that budgets had to be reprioritised to make it happen. Most egregious was cutting budgets that would have gone to aiding the poor and vulnerable to finance an airline that will be used by the wealthy. The commission likened it to taking from the poor to save the &#8216;well-to-do&#8217;. It said that constantly taking money from the budget to finance state companies was unsustainable and warned that something will eventually have to give. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/companies\/industrial\/saa-bailout-like-taking-from-the-poor-to-save-the-well-to-do-commission-20201104\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Taxman is coming<\/strong>: SARS has committed to clamping down on tax avoidance schemes, with commissioner Edward Kieswetter saying the revenue service wants to collects &#8220;tend of billions&#8221; of rands that individuals and companies have hidden to avoid paying their due. It said it has already identified numerous schemes in place to avoid taxes, including paying rent on second or third properties. For companies, it has seen instances where there were suspiciously high interest charges on the loans parent companies grant their subsidiaries. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/sars-to-crack-down-on-tax-avoidance-schemes\/\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>BEE<\/strong>: The Supreme Court of Appeal this week declared the preferential conditions attached to government procurement as invalid, which could bring a major shakeup to how BEE factors into government contracts. The regulations allowed government disqualify in advance companies that were not 51% black owned from participating in tender processes. This meant government did not even consider the price of value proposition of such bids. The 51% BEE requirements has allowed corruption to seep into government&#8217;s R2 trillion procurement spend. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2020-11-03-bee-requirements-on-state-tenders-are-in-for-a-major-shake-up-in-wake-of-court-judgment\/\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>State Capture:<\/strong> Former SAA board member Yakhe Kwinana continued to evade questions at the state capture commission &#8211; this time refusing to provide details on her so-called forex trading activities, which she is not registered to do &#8211; setting the precedent for when former SAA chair Dudu Myeni takes the stand today. Myeni has already been declared a delinquent director for life for her activities at the failed airline, and will now be grilled for response to testimony at the commission that has implicated her in acts of maladministration. [<a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2020\/11\/04\/ex-saa-board-chair-myeni-expected-to-take-stand-at-zondo-inquiry-today\">EWN<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: The dollar rebounded from a one-week low as the polls slowly come in for counting, showing that Trump and Biden are neck and neck. Chinese Composite PMI surprised to the upside while local Standard Bank PMI is due this morning. The US is due to release import and export numbers as well as Manufacturing PMI The rand retreated as the dollar gained momentum. It starts the day at R16.32 to the dollar, R18.97 to the euro and R21.61 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>The Financial Fiscal Commission has warned government over its budget plans &#8211; especially state companies; SARS head Edward Kieswetter says he is going after tax dodgers; Supreme Court ruling could shake up BEE laws; and delinquent director Dudu Myeni faces the State Capture commission over SAA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":326797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-445680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445680","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=445680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445718,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445680\/revisions\/445718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}