{"id":602044,"date":"2022-07-01T07:58:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T05:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=602044"},"modified":"2022-07-01T08:00:01","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T06:00:01","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1312","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/602044\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1312\/","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 negotiations resume:\u00a0<\/strong>Union negotiators and Eskom are expected to continue talks this Friday morning as South Africa continues to face its worst week of load shedding on record. Negotiations will take place for the fifth time at the central bargaining forum and come off the back of reports that unions rejected Eskom&#8217;s increased wage offer of 7%. [<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2022\/07\/01\/eskom-union-negotiators-set-to-continue-talks-in-bid-to-end-crippling-strike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EWN<\/a><\/strong>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Education uproar: <\/strong>Education activists protested against the Department of Basic Education over legislation changes that will scrap deadlines to fix critical school infrastructure. Activist group Equal Education said that without deadlines that are written into law, learners and teachers could be waiting another 10 or 20 years for their schools to be fixed. [<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/southafrica\/news\/education-activists-hit-out-at-education-dept-over-deadlines-to-fix-school-20220701\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News24<\/a><\/strong>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>R9.1 billion boost: <\/strong>One of South Africa&#8217;s essential trade and manufacturing regions, the Eastern Cape, is set to receive an R9.1 billion infrastructure development investment by Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA). The export boost investment plans to assist the province&#8217;s automotive, agricultural, rail and port infrastructure. [<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/industry\/eastern-cape-gets-export-boost-from-transnets-r9bn-ports-investment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moneyweb<\/a><\/strong>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8216;Biggest fraud scheme ever&#8217;: <\/strong>A top US government watchdog charged South Africa-based bitcoin pool operator Mirror Trading International with $1.7 billion fraud on Thursday, alleging the global, multilevel marketing scheme \u201cmisappropriated\u201d all of the bitcoin it amassed. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) described the case as its largest-ever fraud scheme case involving bitcoin. [<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/u-cftc-charges-south-african-181811532.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/strong>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets: <\/strong>South Africa&#8217;s rand slipped to its lowest since October 2020 as electricity cuts and worries about a global recession renewed pressure on the currency. The extended load shedding coupled with a slump in commodity markets added to the rand&#8217;s decline. The rand is currently trading at R16.37\/$, R17.12\/\u20ac and R19.84\/\u00a3. Brent crude is priced at $108.8\/barrel.\u00a0 [<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-african-rand-nears-two-year-low-as-eskom-extends-power-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nasdaq<\/a><\/strong>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talks between Eskom and Unions are set to continue as stage 6 load shedding is extended; Education activist protest proposed legislation changes; A R9 billion investment is planned for the Eastern Cape ;and a South African has been charged by US authorities for one of the largest financial scams ever. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":527802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-602044","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\/602044","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=602044"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602092,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602044\/revisions\/602092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}