{"id":671625,"date":"2023-03-10T07:47:58","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T05:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=671625"},"modified":"2023-03-10T07:47:58","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T05:47:58","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1484","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/671625\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1484\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>DPE on the chopping block:<\/strong> The department of public enterprises will cease to exist in future because state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will fall under their line departments, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in the National Assembly on Thursday (9 March). This was in response to criticism against him adding two more ministers to what opposition parties called a bloated cabinet. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2023-03-09-public-enterprises-department-heads-for-chopping-block\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Business Day<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Renewables boom:<\/strong> In February 2023, around 1,073MW of renewable energy projects were registered with Nersa across the country \u2013 almost two-thirds of the 1,664MW registered in 2022. These projects were mostly solar, and most were registered by the property, retail, farming, mining and energy industries. South Africa is expected to see even more projects in development following the launch of new tax incentives on 1 March. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/climate_future\/energy\/sa-renewables-boom-1-000mw-in-projects-registered-in-feb-from-16mw-a-year-ago-20230310\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Construction mafia:<\/strong> Amid the uptick in construction sentiments in the Western Cape, the province&#8217;s Property Development Forum noted Cape Town is now under threat from construction mafias, with the number of reports increasing. Forum chair Deon van Zyl said this is the prime reason why the construction sector has declined in South Africa, and it needs to be addressed by the government urgently. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/construction-mafia-safety-cape-town-workers-under-threat\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eNCA<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Contamination warning:<\/strong> According to the department of water and sanitation\u2019s\u00a0National State of Water Report 2022, South Africa&#8217;s dams and rivers have a \u201csevere\u201d problem of microbial contamination from\u00a0faecal pollutants. 53% of the sampled sites are a risk to people\u2019s health if consumed or used for crop irrigation, while only 42% indicated a low risk. [<a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/top-six\/2023-03-09-faecal-pollution-severely-contaminates-sas-rivers-dams-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mail and Guardian<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: The South African rand strengthened on Thursday (9 March), recovering from an almost three-year low hit the day before when S&amp;P Global downgraded South Africa&#8217;s outlook to &#8220;stable&#8221; from &#8220;positive&#8221;. Analysts said the markets had already priced in S&amp;P&#8217;s downgrade, and shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange were little changed. On Friday, the rand was trading at R18.54\/$, R19.63\/\u20ac and R22.11\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $81.13 a barrel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The department of public enterprises is on the chopping block; record renewable projects registered in February; construction mafias hit Cape Town; and South Africa&#8217;s dams and rivers have a \u201csevere\u201d contamination problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":644645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-671625","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\/671625","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=671625"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":671651,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671625\/revisions\/671651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}