{"id":717492,"date":"2023-09-11T07:49:40","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T05:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=717492"},"modified":"2023-09-11T07:49:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T05:49:40","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1606","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/717492\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1606\/","title":{"rendered":"5 important things happening in South Africa today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>NHI jitters:<\/strong>&nbsp;South Africa\u2019s Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana, said he would rather invest money in improving government-run hospitals and healthcare infrastructure than implement the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill. Godongwana said the country needs universal health coverage in some form, but it needs a sustainable funding source, which it currently lacks. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/finance\/30103\/rather-fix-hospitals-than-implement-nhi-finance-minister\/\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Investor<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SA losing out on billions:<\/strong> South Africa is losing more than $62 billion a year because of illicit financial flows (IFFs), which could be used to fund the building of schools, hospitals and safer roads. Tyre Import Association of South Africa (Tiasa) chairperson and MD of Treadzone Charl de Villiers said a pilot study by the United Nations Convention on Trade and Development (Unctad) focused on measuring tax and commercial IFFs, revealed that South Africa is losing out on $21.9 billion per year in inward flows and $40.9 billion in outward flows. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/news\/industry\/sa-losing-62bn-a-year-due-to-illicit-financial-flows\/\" target=\"_blank\">Moneyweb<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Businesses battered:<\/strong>&nbsp;Small business owners in South Africa say they\u2019re struggling to keep afloat following the recent fuel hikes, which makes running their alternative power utilities even more costly to keep their doors open. Their businesses are also being battered by Eskom&#8217;s indefinite escalation to stage six power cuts. Many are appealing for the government to come up with a plan to shield them from blackouts to help them keep their doors open. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/top-stories\/fuel-hikes-businesses-struggling-stay-afloat\" target=\"_blank\">eNCA<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Stage 3 and 4 load shedding:<\/strong> Power utility Eskom has announced that load shedding will be switched between various stages this week but will be at stage 4 in the evenings. Stage 3 will run from 05h00 to 16h00, followed by stage 4. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/717476\/get-ready-for-stage-4-load-shedding-this-week-heres-the-new-schedule\/\" target=\"_blank\">BusinessTech<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Markets<\/strong>: The South African rand extended gains on Friday as the U.S. dollar fell, leaving the rand slightly stronger than it was at the start of a bumpy week. On Monday (11 September), the rand was trading at R19.01\/USD, R20.41\/EUR and R23.80\/GBP. Oil is trading at $90.53 a barrel. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/africa\/south-african-rand-extends-gains-against-weaker-dollar-2023-09-08\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Godongwana expresses NHI jitters; South Africa is losing billions to illicit financial flows; small businesses getting hammered on all sides; and Eskom downgrades load shedding for the coming week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":666849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-717492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717492","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=717492"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717508,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717492\/revisions\/717508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}