{"id":639535,"date":"2022-11-01T07:42:58","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T05:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=639535"},"modified":"2022-11-01T07:42:58","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T05:42:58","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1398","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/639535\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1398\/","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>Gas and nuclear:<\/strong> Part of the conditions for the National Treasury to take on a massive chunk of Eskom&#8217;s debt is for the power utility to invest in gas and nuclear projects, finance minister Enoch Godongwana has revealed. He said that these are old, reliable technologies that have been unduly attacked by lobby groups from the renewable energy sector. The transfer of debt is contingent on strict conditions, and government plans to transfer up to two-thirds of it. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/economy\/eskom-debt-takeover-godongwana-says-gas-nuclear-will-be-part-of-conditions-20221101\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>E-toll confusion:<\/strong> While the government has seemingly put the issue of e-tolls to rest, questions still remain about how the Gauteng provincial government will finance the 30% debt payment that forms part of the system being scrapped. The Gauteng government will need to contribute R14 billion to the debt payment, which has been called into question and accused of being overpriced. Aside from the amount, there is also no clarity on how it will be paid. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/confusion-over-how-much-gauteng-must-pay-sanral-to-settle-e-toll-debt\/\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Terror alert blunder:<\/strong> International relations and law experts say that the US terrorism warning that went out last week was a serious breach of diplomatic protocol &#8211; going as far as to be an insult to South Africa and its security sector. They said that South Africa actually had all the information and had been tracking the alleged terrorists for weeks, and upon liaising with the US mission in the country, the embassy issued the alert with no warning or consultation &#8211; ruining the operation in the process. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/458456\/sandton-terror-hawks-were-investigating-suspects-for-weeks-before-us-warning?ref=pid:94\">702<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Monarchy troubles:<\/strong> Unions are calling for all royal houses in South Africa to be abolished. The General Industries Workers Union of SA (Giwusa) has criticised royalty in the country for costing taxpayers millions of rands spent on salaries, palaces and other luxuries while their subjects toil. The millions spent on royals also fly in the face of provinces that are suffering from natural disasters and other issues and getting very little aid, it said. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2022-11-01-costs-of-sa-royals-in-the-spotlight-as-union-calls-for-the-abolition-of-zulu-monarchy\/\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: South Africa&#8217;s rand weakened on Monday as investors maintained a cautious stance ahead of this week&#8217;s highly anticipated policy meeting by the US Federal Reserve. South Africa recorded a trade surplus of R19.70 billion in September, up from a revised surplus of R6.20 billion in August, data from\u00a0 SARS showed on Monday. On Tuesday. the rand was trading at R18.29\/$, R18.13\/\u20ac and R21.06\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $ a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-african-rand-weakens-as-fed-decision-looms\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Treasury wants Eskom to push ahead with gas and nuclear projects; questions hang over e-tolls and how Gauteng will pay; experts say the US terrorism alert was an insult to South Africa; and unions call for royal houses in South Africa to be abolished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":503521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-639535","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\/639535","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=639535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639551,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639535\/revisions\/639551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}