{"id":640701,"date":"2022-11-04T07:49:51","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T05:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=640701"},"modified":"2022-11-04T07:50:09","modified_gmt":"2022-11-04T05:50:09","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1401","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/640701\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1401\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>E-tolls still apply:<\/strong>\u00a0 The National Treasury says the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) is still legally allowed to collect toll fees on Gauteng&#8217;s freeways. This is until the Gauteng provincial government commits to a plan on how to fund the highway network and use the tolling mechanism to raise the revenue it would need. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/economy\/gautengs-e-tolls-still-apply-and-must-be-collected-until-a-new-deal-is-struck-20221104\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Soweto bailout<\/strong>: In 2020, Eskom wrote off about R8 billion in overdue debt for Soweto residents, and now President Cyril Ramaphosa has raised the prospect of writing off another R5 billion. This comes after the announcement that South Africa has established a multi-disciplinary revenue committee to address municipal and government debt to Eskom \u2014 which currently sits at around R50 billion. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2022-11-03-ramaphosa-suggests-soweto-debt-to-eskom-can-be-scrapped\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BusinessLive<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Unaffordable public wages:<\/strong> The government remains firm on its view that the public wage increase that unions are demanding is simply unaffordable for the fiscus, which has led to four unions issuing certificates of non-resolution, effectively allowing workers to embark on a strike that could see nurses, police and other public sector workers stay away from work, disrupting key government services. The government has said that South Africa pays R665 billion in public employee compensation, which is expected to soar to R702 billion by 2025. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/public-sector-wage-talks-leave-ramaphosa-in-tight-spot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>De Ruyter&#8217;s future:<\/strong> President Cyril Ramaphosa said that Eskom\u00a0chief executive\u00a0Andr\u00e9 de Ruyter\u2019s job is currently under performance assessments, and the state-owned entity\u2019s board will decide whether he stays or goes in due course. This was Ramaphosa&#8217;s response to EFF leader Julius Malema&#8217;s question in parliament about when De Ruyter would be fired over worsening load-shedding and poor governance over the power utility. [<a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/news\/2022-11-03-eskom-board-will-decide-de-ruyters-future-says-ramaphosa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mail &amp; Gaurdian<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: South Africa&#8217;s rand weakened further against the dollar after the US Federal Reserve signalled that it would not slow down the pace of its interest rate increases. Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking at a news conference at the end of a policy meeting, <span id=\"x1\">said<\/span> it was &#8220;very premature&#8221; to discuss when the Fed might pause its rate increases, sending jitters through the markets. On Friday, the rand was trading at R18.32\/$, R17.92\/\u20ac and R20.55\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $96.38 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-african-rand-stocks-fall-on-hawkish-fed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nasdaq<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Treasury says Sanral is still legally allowed to collect toll fees; Ramaphosa has raised the prospect of writing off another R5 billion Soweto residents owe to Eskom; government maintains that public sector wage demands are unaffordable; and Eskom\u00a0chief executive\u00a0Andr\u00e9 de Ruyter\u2019s job is currently under performance assessments. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":56961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-640701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640701","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=640701"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640737,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640701\/revisions\/640737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}