{"id":725834,"date":"2023-10-19T07:52:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T05:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=725834"},"modified":"2023-10-19T07:58:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T05:58:28","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1633","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/725834\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1633\/","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<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Load shedding costs SARS:<\/strong>\u00a0South African Revenue Service (SARS) Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said they kissed up to R150 billion goodbye because of load-shedding. Load-shedding hampers economic growth and eats into productivity and company profits. This, in turn, affects corporate tax collections. \u201cWe estimated last year that revenue lost to load-shedding was about R60 billion but could easily be as high as R150 billion,\u201d Kieswetter said. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/south-africa\/34998\/edward-kieswetter-kisses-r150-billion-goodbye\/\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Investor<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Joburg money problems:\u00a0<\/strong>Johannesburg is facing mounting financial pressures, with the city being owed over R46 billion in rates and taxes. This prompted the city to enlist the services of debt collectors to assist in recovering funds owed. However, despite collecting half a billion rand for the municipality, the City of Johannesburg has told its debt collectors it cannot pay them for the work they have done. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/southafrica\/news\/crumbling-city-of-joburg-hires-debt-collectors-to-help-bolster-revenue-and-then-fails-to-pay-them-20231019\" target=\"_blank\">News24<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Vodacom takes a hit:\u00a0<\/strong>Vodacom has been found guilty of contravening sections of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) with its contract cancellation penalty fee, landing a R1 million administrative fine from the National Consumer Tribunal. The NCC found that Vodacom\u2019s conduct was \u201cunethical by imposing terms and conditions that negated the consumers\u2019 right to cancel their fixed-term contracts\u201d. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/511810-vodacom-fined-r1-million-over-unethical-contract-cancellations.html\" target=\"_blank\">MyBroadband<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Win for medical aids:\u00a0<\/strong>Medical aids have secured a victory in the Constitutional Court that will give them legal certainty that they can continue paying road accident victims&#8217; medical fees and then claim the amounts back from the Road Accident Fund. The apex court dismissed an application from the RAF to overturn a court ruling compelling it to continue this arrangement. It may also hold implications for new proposed laws that specifically want to exclude medical aids from doing so. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/health\/2023-10-19-constitutional-court-hands-medical-schemes-a-win-in-battle-with-raf\/\">BusinessLive<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Markets:<\/strong>\u00a0The South African rand fell on Wednesday after September headline consumer inflation rose sharply in Africa&#8217;s most industrialised economy. On Thursday (19 October), the rand was trading at R19.03 to the dollar, R23.07 to the pound and R20.04 to the euro. Oil is trading at $91.10 a barrel. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/articles\/south-african-rand-falls-after-sharp-inflation-spike\" target=\"_blank\">Nasdaq<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SARS shares in the load shedding blues; Joburg is facing a debt spiral; Vodacom fined over unethical contract cancellations; and medical aids score a win at the ConCourt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":641185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-725834","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\/725834","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=725834"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":725854,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725834\/revisions\/725854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}