{"id":623765,"date":"2022-09-08T07:59:16","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T05:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=623765"},"modified":"2022-09-08T07:59:16","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T05:59:16","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1360","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/623765\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1360\/","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>Broad terrorism:<\/strong> Concerns over the expansion of what is deemed to be terrorist activities, including publications of &#8216;unlawful terrorist content&#8217;, were raised on Wednesday when Parliament&#8217;s police committee heard public submissions on an anti-terrorism bill. The Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorist and Related Activities Amendment Bill was introduced in a bid for South Africa to avoid a global &#8216;greylisting&#8217;. However, the draft laws are not without their shortcomings. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2022-09-07-as-sa-moves-to-prevent-global-greylisting-alarm-bells-ring-over-broad-definition-of-terrorist-activities\/\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>New grants:<\/strong> New documents outline potential replacements for the R350 social relief distress grant in South Africa, including introducing a job-seeker grant and a caregiver grant. The government proposals are far removed from calls to have the SRD grant become a permanent basic income grant in the country. The proposals have already drawn criticism, with social groups saying they would ultimately exclude the majority of current SRD recipients. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/government-documents-outline-new-social-grant-plans\/\">GroundUp<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Protection racket:<\/strong> Eskom is hesitant to re-enter areas where it has disconnected residents due to threats of violence against its teams. In some areas, gangsters have attempted to launch protection rackets against the power utility &#8211; demanding as much as R20,000 a month in &#8216;protection fees&#8217;. These protection rackets go further than the power utility, with similar attempts being made against other state companies like Prasa. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times-daily\/news\/2022-09-07-watch-extortion-racket-leaves-eskom-and-khayelitsha-residents-powerless\/\">TimesLive<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Deep rot:<\/strong> A new investigation by amaBhungane uncovers deep rot and tender fraud at the eThekwini municipality, where the metro is attempting to hand a dubious R30-million &#8220;settlement&#8221; to a tenderpreneur \u2014 and punish the whistleblower who exposed its questionable origins. In 2012 a Durban electricity official flagged a contractor for overcharging and urged his blacklisting. In 2017, the city turned on the official and suspended him. When the official persisted, his son was shot dead in a hit he believes was meant for him. [<a href=\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/stories\/220709-the-durban-whistleblower-the-deadly-hit-and-the-dodgy-r30m-debt\/\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: South Africa&#8217;s rand strengthened on Wednesday as the dollar fell despite the US economy&#8217;s showing signs of resilience. A survey showed on Wednesday that South Africa&#8217;s business confidence slipped in the third quarter as sentiment among building contractors deteriorated due to shortages of some materials, load-shedding and planning delays. The reading remained in depressed territory. On Thursday, the rand was trading at R17.30\/$, R17.29\/\u20ac and R19.92\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $89 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-african-rand-firms-as-dollar-weakens-stocks-fall\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa&#8217;s new anti-terrorism laws face backlash; government proposes new grants to replace the R350 distress grant; Eskom and other state companies hit by protection rackets; and new investigation uncovers deep rot in eThekwini.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":481313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-623765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623765","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=623765"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623771,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623765\/revisions\/623771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}