{"id":587018,"date":"2022-05-17T08:18:28","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T06:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=587018"},"modified":"2022-05-17T08:18:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T06:18:28","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1280","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/587018\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1280\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Eskom crisis: <\/strong>COO of Eskom Jan Oberholzer says that the root cause of the current crisis at the utility generation is a shortage of both capacity and funding. Speaking at the power utility&#8217;s System Status and Outlook Briefing on Wednesday, he noted that the cause of the current state of Eskom stemmed from 2012. He said that this was a result of years of lower planned maintenance on the ageing fleet combined with the high utilisation of the power plants. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/these-charts-show-the-eskom-crisis-has-been-two-decades-in-the-making\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Housing paper changes:\u00a0 <\/strong>The ANC has proposed that the central bank and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) provide special interest rates and tax incentives to beneficiaries of state housing. Ultimately this proposal, discovered in a recent draft discussion paper, could bring an end to the provision of free basic homes for poor people and rather shift the focus to people building their own homes. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/politics\/2022-05-17-anc-proposes-radical-change-to-housing-policy-in-discussion-paper\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BusinessLive<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Zuma trial:\u00a0<\/strong>Former president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s corruption case has returned to the High Court in Pietermaritzburg. The trial was meant to get underway in April but was postponed after Zuma made a petition to reconsider his application for the state advocate Billy Downer to be removed. The case was postponed to this Tuesday. The corruption trial, over a decade in the making, has been subject to a swathe of delaying tactics from Zuma&#8217;s legal team. [<a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2022\/05\/17\/jacob-zuma-s-corruption-case-returns-to-high-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EWN<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Ubank users assured: <\/strong>Ubank &#8211; home to around 4.7 million accounts, primarily mineworkers and their families &#8211; has been placed under curatorship by the South African Reserve Bank. The bank suffered from a high number of internal-control weaknesses, and a lack of sufficient capital to ensure its viability. The Reserve Bank governor has said that Ubank will remain operational for those with accounts at the bank. He further added that there are possible inventors looking at the bank. [<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/587002\/south-africa-places-ubank-under-administration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BusinessTech<\/a>] [<a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2022\/05\/17\/kganyago-assures-account-holders-that-ubank-will-remain-operational\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EWN<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets:\u00a0<\/strong> The South African rand fell in early trade on Monday amid less risk-taking as investors sought safety due to fears about global growth. Power cuts across the country continued to cloud economic growth. The market&#8217;s attention is now on a monetary policy decision by the South African Reserve Bank that will be announced on Thursday. The rand is currently trading at R16.08\/$, R16.79\/\u20ac and R19.84 \/\u00a3. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-africas-rand-falls-amid-growth-concerns-power-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nasdaq<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom&#8217;s COO says that the root cause of Eskom&#8217;s failure started in 2012. A draft discussion paper proposes radical changes to free housing. Former president Jacob Zuma&#8217;s corruption trial returns to court. Ubank, a bank to roughly 4.7 million people, is said to remain operational despite being under curatorship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":481315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-587018","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\/587018","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=587018"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":587064,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587018\/revisions\/587064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}