{"id":674219,"date":"2023-03-22T08:14:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T06:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=674219"},"modified":"2023-03-22T08:14:40","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T06:14:40","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1491","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/674219\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1491\/","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>: Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says he expects four units to go online at Kusile power station by the end of the year, with an additional unit coming on stream in February 2024. Ramokgopa said that the issues at the power plant are technical and have nothing to do with corruption. The minister is currently visiting power stations in Mpumalanga, where he said there are plans to tackle the electricity crisis. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/ramokgopa-says-four-units-kusile-will-come-online-end-year\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eNCA<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sabcnews.com\/sabcnews\/problems-at-kusile-have-nothing-to-do-with-corruption-ramokgopa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SABC<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Universities tackle AI: <\/strong>ChatGPT is allowing for widespread plagiarism and is forcing tertiary institutions to tackle how they teach and test students. The University of KwaZulu-Natal and Wits are introducing seminars for academics, with fears growing that students can easily outsource assignments and cheat. Although ChatGPT&#8217;s academic referring is incredibly poor and often wrong, there are concerns that the tools to detect AI-generated text will not keep up. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/education\/2023-03-21-chatgpt-prompts-a-big-review-of-teaching-at-sas-tertiary-institutions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BusinessDay<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Illegal rates set aside<\/strong>: The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that excessive rates charged by the Thaba Chweu Local Municipality in Mpumalanga to local farmers between 2009 and 2018 are unlawful and set aside. The farmers based their objection on legislative prescripts which limit the tariff levied for land use for farming to 25% of that applicable to residential land use. The municipalities were previously found to have acted illegally but will now have to credit the accounts where the rates were incorrectly levied. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/unlawful-rates-set-aside-after-decade-long-battle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>UK lifts ban<\/strong>: The UK government has lifted a three-year ban on consulting firm Bain &amp; Company from bidding for public sector contracts after its involvement in state capture in South Africa. The consulting firm has been tied to alleged corruption regarding work it did for SARS, where it took millions in what was revealed during the Zondo commission to have aided state capture. Despite the UK lifting its ban, South Africa&#8217;s National Treasury prohibited the company from working with the state for ten years. [<a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2023\/03\/22\/uk-government-lifts-3-year-ban-on-bain-and-company\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EWN<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: The rand saw minimal movement on Tuesday, despite it being the first day with no load shedding since October last year. The country has experienced near-permanent load shedding since the beginning of 2023, with it resuming at stage 2 and 3 today. Regarding economic data, StatsSA will release its CPI stats for February 2023 later today. On Wednesday (22 March), the rand was trading at R18.55\/$, R19.97\/\u20ac, and R22.68\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $74.99 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/674207\/after-141-days-of-blackouts-eskom-gives-south-africa-its-first-full-day-of-no-load-shedding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BusinessTech<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ramokgopa on Kusile, Universities grapple with ChatGPT, illegal rates set aside, UK lifts ban on Bain and Company, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":673641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-674219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674219","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=674219"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":674251,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674219\/revisions\/674251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}