{"id":690705,"date":"2023-05-24T07:55:29","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T05:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=690705"},"modified":"2023-05-24T08:16:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T06:16:57","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1532","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/690705\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1532\/","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>New Eskom CEO<\/strong>: Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says the Eskom board will announce a new CEO within a month or so. Eskom&#8217;s CFO, Calim Cassim, has been working as the interim CEO following the controversial departure of Andre de Ruyter. In addition, despite ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula previously saying that load shedding will be over by end of the year, Gordhan said that high levels of load shedding will likely go beyond 2023. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2023-05-23-eskom-to-get-new-ceo-within-a-month-gordhan-tells-mps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Business Day<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Electric vehicle boost:<\/strong> The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) says it wants to issue a tender worth hundreds of millions of rands by the end of June to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Naamsa CEO Mikel Mabasa said that the tender submission deadline closed in March, with the group receiving submissions from four local and five international companies who all have experience in the field.\u00a0 [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/industry\/sa-auto-industry-to-award-tender-for-ev-charging-stations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Road crisis<\/strong>: The number of trucks on South Africa&#8217;s roads is damaging infrastructure, with many coal and chrome shipments flooding South Africa&#8217;s ports. The increase in truck use is linked to the continued difficulty of Transnet&#8217;s rail network. South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) spokesperson Vusi Mona said that the nation&#8217;s roads cannot carry volumes of that size, adding that the only solution is to move loads on rail lines. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/economy\/sa-roads-are-vanishing-as-trucks-run-riot-20230524\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Cholera corruption<\/strong>: The cholera outbreak hitting Hammanskraal, Gauteng &#8211; which has claimed at least 15 lives &#8211; could have been minimised if the tender to upgrade the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant was awarded to a suitable firm. Instead, the tender was awarded to a corruption-accused ANC benefactor whose consortium got paid nearly R300 million, the contract&#8217;s full value, after completing half the work. Five Tshwane metro employees are facing a disciplinary hearing for awarding the tender in 2019. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sowetanlive.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/2023-05-24-irregularities-muddied-hammanskraal-water-tender\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sowetan<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: The South African rand was broadly flat on Tuesday, a day after staging a mini-recovery on relief the country&#8217;s credit rating was not downgraded and bets on a large interest rate hike from the central bank this week. Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) data for April will be announced later today. The South African Reserve Bank is expected to increase interest rates by 25 basis points tomorrow to fight high inflation. On Wednesday (24 May), the rand was trading at R19.19\/$, R20.70\/\u20ac, and R32.87\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $77.61 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-african-rand-stabilises-after-mondays-mini-recovery\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nasdaq<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Eskom CEO announcement coming, Naamsa wants to roll out EV charging infrastructure, failing rails hurt the nation&#8217;s roads, and Hammanskraal cholera outbreak tied to corruption. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":661095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-690705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690705","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=690705"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":690733,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690705\/revisions\/690733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}