{"id":694637,"date":"2023-06-08T08:06:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T06:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=694637"},"modified":"2023-06-08T08:06:57","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T06:06:57","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1543","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/694637\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1543\/","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>Business and government team up<\/strong>: President Cyril Ramaphosa is establishing crisis committees with some of the executives from South Africa&#8217;s biggest companies to address the country&#8217;s energy crisis, ineffective ports and widespread crime. Ramaphosa said that the partnership would build on the success of the Covid-19 response, where the public and private sectors worked together to implement a nationwide vaccine rollout. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2023-06-07-business-joins-ramaphosas-effort-to-fix-sa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Busieness Day<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No BRICS summit<\/strong>: The Department of International Relations and Cooperation is believed to have given the green light to move the upcoming BRICS summit to China. One cabinet minister told News24 that the government had not spent much for the event, so moving it now would not come at a major cost. Moreover, a legal opinion for the BRICS-appointed technical team said it is best if Russian leader Vladimir Putin does not attend the event. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/politics\/government\/dirco-said-to-be-amenable-to-moving-brics-summit-to-china-20230608\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Uber problem<\/strong>: E-hailing drivers say that the government has failed to regulate the transport sector following a series of violent altercations at Soweto malls with taxi operators. Soweto United E-hailing Association&#8217;s Vhatuka Mbelengwa said that the government failed by allowing Bolt and Uber to enter the market without regulating pricing. He added that illegal operators pretending to be e-hailing drivers were operating in key areas and malls, undermining the taxi and e-hailing industries. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/2023-06-08-soweto-e-hailing-drivers-blame-government-for-recent-arson-attacks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TimesLive<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Zuma loses: <\/strong>The High Court in Pietermaritzburg has set aside former President Jacob Zuma&#8217;s private prosecution of state prosecutor Billy Downer and legal journalist Karyn Maughan. Zuma accused Downer of leaking confidential medical information to Maughan. However, the court said that the private prosecution was an abuse of the legal process and ordered Zuma to pay all legal costs for the defendants. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/opinions\/analysis\/in-depth-flimsy-arguments-abuse-of-process-punitive-costs-court-hands-zuma-a-smackdown-20230608\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Markets<\/strong>: On Tuesday, the rand dropped below R19.00 for the first time since the middle of May, boosted by lower levels of load shedding and a weaker dollar. Andre Botha from TreasuryOne said that the rand&#8217;s larger pullback compared to other emerging currencies could be due to the rand being disproportionally undervalued against its peers, with a rebalancing warranted. On Thursday (8 June), the rand was trading at R19.11\/$, R20.47\/\u20ac, and R23.79\/\u00a3. Brent crude is trading at $76.62. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/africa\/south-african-rand-weakens-bleak-investor-outlook-2023-06-07\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public and private sectors to fight load shedding, BRICS move gains momentum, government blamed for e-hailing violence, Zuma loses court battle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":647925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-694637","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\/694637","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=694637"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":694657,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694637\/revisions\/694657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}