{"id":735951,"date":"2023-12-05T08:02:06","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T06:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=735951"},"modified":"2023-12-05T08:02:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T06:02:06","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1666","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/735951\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1666\/","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>Bad news for Koeberg:<\/strong>&nbsp;The National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) has confirmed that Koeberg Power Station\u2019s two generating units will seldom run together for the foreseeable future. According to Peter Bester, programme manager for nuclear power stations at the NNR, the units will each face a 200-day outage following the completion of unit 2\u2019s steam generator replacement. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/518363-bad-news-for-koeberg-power-station.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>Cost of load shedding in 2023:<\/strong>&nbsp;Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said around 840,000 South Africans stand to lose their jobs due to load-shedding in 2023. The Minister explained that Medupi \u201cstands between people\u2019s livelihoods and prosperity\u201d and emphasised the impact of breakdowns and subsequent load-shedding on the South African economy. He said 640,000 people lost their jobs due to elevated load-shedding in 2022. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/energy\/39636\/800000-south-africans-can-lose-their-jobs-due-to-load-shedding\/\" 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>Fix it yourself:<\/strong>&nbsp;Civil society has banded together to try and solve major issues in the City of Johannesburg. Many residents at the meeting were infrastructure experts who have worked in both the private and public sectors and have intimate knowledge of the city&#8217;s issues and how to fix them. They are offering their services for free to help mitigate the many crises. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/southafrica\/news\/joburg-residents-planning-to-fix-city-as-coalition-chaos-continues-20231205\" 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>Holiday season concerns for Cape Town:&nbsp;<\/strong>The water quality at a number of Cape Town\u2019s beaches and tidal pools \u2013 including Fish Hoek Beach, Strandfontein Beach, Hout Bay Beach and both Camps Bay tidal pools \u2013 is poor, according to the city\u2019s water quality review. The beaches have been labelled in red in the review, indicating a health risk and a high bacteria count, which is a major concern ahead of the holiday season. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2023-12-04-its-code-red-on-the-water-quality-of-beaches-around-cape-town-ahead-of-peak-holiday-season\/\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Maverick<\/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>&nbsp;South Africa&#8217;s rand fell on Monday as the dollar rose strongly on global markets at the start of a busy week for local economic data with gross domestic product (GDP) and current account figures due. &#8220;The rand has very much been a passenger to broader dollar moves today,&#8221; said Danny Greeff at ETM Analytics. On Tuesday (5 December), the rand was trading at R18.83 to the dollar, R23.80 to the pound and R20.42 to the euro. Oil is trading at $78.03 a barrel. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/currencies\/south-african-rand-falls-gdp-current-account-due-this-week-2023-12-04\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Koeberg Power Station hamstrung; load shedding could cost mass job cuts; Joburg residents plan to fix things themselves; and code red at some of Cape Town&#8217;s beaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":643257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-735951","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\/735951","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=735951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":735959,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735951\/revisions\/735959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}