{"id":689409,"date":"2023-05-19T08:12:59","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T06:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=689409"},"modified":"2023-05-19T08:12:59","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T06:12:59","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1529","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/689409\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1529\/","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>Good news for gas<\/strong>: The Competition Tribunal says Sasol Gas will not be able to increase the prices of piped natural gas for the next six months while an investigation looks into allegations of anticompetitive practices. The decision will be a relief to gas-reliant industries.\u00a0 The Tribunal said that members of the Industrial Gas Users\u2019 Association of Southern Africa had shown that an increase would be excessive. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/energy\/2023-05-18-competition-tribunal-puts-the-brakes-on-sasols-gas-price-hikes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Business Day<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Private-public partnership<\/strong>: Investec Group CEO Fani Titi has joined the chorus of the country&#8217;s business leaders asking for the government to open the economy to the private sector. Titi said that more private-public partnerships will lead to further economic growth and boost investor confidence in the country. He added that corporate clients listed on the JSE have lower valuations due to the country&#8217;s energy crisis. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/economy\/government-must-open-economy-to-private-sector-investec-ceo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>We&#8217;re not friends with Russia<\/strong>: Deputy Minister of Finance David Masondo says South Africa does not favour Russia over other countries. During a speech in New York, Masondo said that South Africa&#8217;s non-aligned stance does not favour Russia. He added that South Africa and the US need to address the allegations that South Africa supplied arms to Russia to settle the rand and government bond prices. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/economy\/masondo-in-new-york-south-africa-doesnt-favour-russia-20230519\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>CEO&#8217;s real nightmare<\/strong>: Boyce Lloyd is stepping down as the CEO of KWV &#8211; a major wine producer &#8211; early, following controversy surrounding his wife&#8217;s appearance on <em>Die Real Housewives van die Wynlande. <\/em>In the show, Anita Lloyd constantly flaunted her wealth and made disrespectful remarks about people with low incomes. Emile Joubert, a communications expert in the Wine industry, said that the CEO&#8217;s early exit results from the damage caused by the programme to KWV&#8217;s brand. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/companies\/real-housewives-and-kwv-experts-warn-of-boycott-risk-brand-damage-20230519\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: South Africa&#8217;s rand extended the previous day&#8217;s losses on Thursday as the US dollar hovered near a seven-week high on optimism over US debt ceiling talks. Local investors will turn their focus towards an interest rate decision by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) next week, with analysts expecting another hike. On 19 May (Friday), the rand was trading at R19.32\/$, R20.79\/\u20ac, and R23.95\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $76.47 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-african-rand-extends-losses-as-dollar-gains-on-debt-ceiling-talks-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nasdaq<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sasol&#8217;s gas prices, Investec CEO calls for more private sector participation, Masondo denies frienship with Russia, KWV CEO to resing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":689421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-689409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689409","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689409"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689437,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689409\/revisions\/689437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}