Here\u2019s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom turning a corner:\u00a0<\/strong>Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says the recent improvement in the power situation is a combination of reduced demand, better plant performance and more renewable energy uptake by households and industries. \u201cWhat we are seeing now is that when units come back online, they remain on for the longer hours, so they produce for the longest hours without fail.\u201d Eskom\u2019s current unplanned outages are the lowest they have been since November 2022. [Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strike warning:\u00a0<\/strong>Government services, including hospitals, Home Affairs and grant payments across the country could be without technical support on Wednesday (18 October) as thousands of State Information Technology Agency (SITA) employees down tools after salary negotiations reached a deadlock. Unions are demanding a 7.5% wage hike, among other things – SITA put forward a final offer of 4.5%, rejecting other demands. [BusinessTech<\/a>, News24<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Call to halt budget cuts: <\/strong>More than 100 academics, economists, professionals and civil society organisations have signed an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa and Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana calling for a halt to all planned budget cuts. The calls come as SA faces a deteriorating fiscal position characterised by low growth, much reduced tax revenue, expenditure overruns and ballooning debt. [Business Day<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teacher crisis: <\/strong>According to the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (OMT) Education Research Report, around four-fifths of grade 6 mathematics pupils in the country are taught by teachers who have Maths subject knowledge below the grade 6 level. This means that only 20% of children are receiving the required education. Additionally, the report showed that 55% of teachers at grade 6 level read at the level of a grade 4 pupil. [702<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Markets: <\/strong>The South African rand strengthened in early trade on Monday as tensions in the Middle East underpinned the price of oil and put the dollar on the back foot. “There are lots of stresses in global financial markets which risks spilling into rand volatility, but USD\/ZAR looks happy around 19.00 and potentially range-bound for the next few weeks,” said Rand Merchant Bank analysts in a morning briefing. On Tuesday (17 October), the rand was trading at R18.81 to the dollar, R22.94 to the pound and R19.85 to the euro. Oil is trading at $89.55 a barrel. [Reuters<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eskom may be turning a corner; Strike warning at government services; Call for government to reconsider budget cuts; and a new report highlights alarming teacher shortcomings in public schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":725312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-725294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725294","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=725294"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":725314,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725294\/revisions\/725314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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