{"id":664087,"date":"2023-02-13T08:02:22","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T06:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=664087"},"modified":"2023-02-13T08:02:22","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T06:02:22","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1465","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/664087\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1465\/","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>Kusile relief<\/strong>: The fire-damaged Unit 5 at Kusile power station will be repaired three months earlier than expected after Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer flew to Japan to secure a key undertaking from power station boiler contractor Mitsubishi. Engineers are now working to have the 800-megawatt Unit 5 repaired by July &#8211; originally expected to be finished by October. Further commission activities mean that the Unit will only come online in October this year, which is still a significant improvement. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/investigations\/kusile-disaster-eskoms-oberholzer-went-on-a-mission-to-japan-to-get-fire-damaged-unit-fixed-faster-20230213\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Eskom doubles down on revenue increase: <\/strong>Eskom CFO Calib Cassim says the efforts by the DA and the Tebeila Institute of Leadership, Education, Governance and Training to stop the 18.65% increase in Eskom&#8217;s revenue will cause serious harm to the economy. Cassim said that Eskom&#8217;s tariffs have not yet been set and that Nersa&#8217;s determination only related to Eskom&#8217;s revenue. He added that setting aside the revenue determination would mean Eskom would receive no revenue, as it cannot continue charging at current tariff levels. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/eskom-describes-calls-to-stop-tariff-increases-as-myopic\/\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Post office retrenchments<\/strong>: The Communications Worker Union (CWU) claims the South African Post Office (SAPO) is set to retrench 6,000 employees across the country. CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala said that SAPO gave notice in terms of Sections 189 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA), meaning it intends to retrench 6,000 workers. Tshabalala said that SAPO&#8217;s actions violate Section 189 of the act as it did not undergo a consultative process to determine whether the retrenchments are necessary. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/companies\/post-office-pushes-ahead-with-plans-to-retrench-6-000-workers-union-claims-20230212\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Fears over Russia<\/strong>: Western governments are increasingly nervous about the joint military operation between South Africa, Russia, and China planned for later this month. Anonymous Western diplomats are concerned that the event will simply be a propaganda exercise for Russia, with it showcasing its military strength. They said that they are also concerned that Russia would test the supposedly unstoppable Zircon missile, despite the SANDF saying that no missile would be launched during the operation. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2023-02-11-western-diplomats-raise-alarm-on-south-africa-russia-china-joint-naval-exercise-during-anniversary-of-ukraine-invasion\/\">Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: South Africa&#8217;s rand was little changed on Friday after President Cyril Ramaphosa&#8217;s declaration of a state of disaster to tackle crippling power shortages in the country failed to elicit investor confidence. Analysts said the president&#8217;s response to the crisis did not impress them, with no clear end in sight to the hours of daily power cuts that have hurt businesses across all sectors and hammered economic growth. On Monday (13 February), the rand was trading at R17.95\/$, R19.14\/\u20ac, and R21.62\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $85.48 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-african-rand-flat-as-markets-shrug-off-presidents-speech\">Nasdaq<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good news for Kusile Unit 5, Eskom criticises court action over revenue increase, Post Office set to retrench 6,000 workers, Western Diplomats concerned over SA maritime exercise with Russia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":641473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-664087","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\/664087","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=664087"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664135,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664087\/revisions\/664135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}