{"id":611370,"date":"2022-07-28T08:07:16","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T06:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=611370"},"modified":"2022-07-28T08:07:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T06:07:16","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1331","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/611370\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1331\/","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<ul>\n<li><strong>Energy:<\/strong> To meet South Africa&#8217;s energy needs, a staggering R1.2 trillion will need to be invested in the country&#8217;s electricity sector before 2030. The government is looking to the private sector to fund the largest portion of this &#8211; approximately R990 billion. Power utility Eskom said that the private sector would play a pivotal role in future generation, as the company is split into different units which will have to compete in an open market. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2022-07-27-eskom-looks-to-private-sector-to-help-with-r990bn-it-needs-for-new-generation\/\">BusinessLive<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Flagged:<\/strong> While the R22 million flag for South Africa has been sent back to cabinet for review, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa says that the project is not off the table and that a final decision still needs to be made. The flag was first revealed in February 2022 but drew massive public outcry when the budget was revealed in May. The public deemed the flag a &#8216;vanity project&#8217;, and even president Cyril Ramaphosa said that it should not proceed. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/videos\/discussion-flag-project-r22m-flagpole-may-still-be-hoisted\">ENCA<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Audits:<\/strong> Ahead of its policy conference this weekend, the ANC is proposing that some older policies be implemented, such as the call for lifestyle audits to curb corruption. The party said this is more urgent now that over 200 ANC members were implicated in the state capture proceedings. State capture and the findings of the commission will be a central pillar of the policy debates, as will other social issues like the basic income grant and land reform policies. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/southafrica\/politics\/ancs-proposal-to-curb-corruption-lifestyle-audits-policy-on-relatives-doing-business-with-state-20220727\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Proxy war:<\/strong> Analysts say that South Africans shouldn&#8217;t expect many surprises to come out of this weekend&#8217;s ANC policy conference, as the event has historically been used to fight proxy wars for leadership of the party rather than debate actual policy direction. This year is looking no different, with the ANC&#8217;s step-aside policy &#8211; which has caused major factional divides in the party &#8211; already coming to the fore. The weekend will see president Ramaphosa&#8217;s supporters and opponents in the same venue since 2017. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2022-07-27-we-should-not-expect-fireworks-at-the-ancs-policy-conference\/\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: South Africa&#8217;s rand firmed on Wednesday ahead of an interest rate hike decision by the US Federal Reserve. The Fed raised interest rates by 75 basis points in a bid to stem rising inflation. The rand strengthened further following the hike. On Thursday, the rand was trading at R16.68\/$, R17.02\/\u20ac and R20.29\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $107 a barrel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa needs R1.2 trillion to meet its future energy needs, Eskom says; the controversial R22 million flag is not off the table yet; ANC calls for lifestyle audits as a key policy; analysts say the ANC&#8217;s coming policy conference is more a proxy war for leadership than anything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":512654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-611370","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\/611370","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=611370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611392,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611370\/revisions\/611392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}