{"id":740043,"date":"2024-01-03T08:05:40","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T06:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=740043"},"modified":"2024-01-03T08:10:34","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T06:10:34","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1680","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/740043\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1680\/","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>Illegal social grants:&nbsp;<\/strong>Public service &amp; administration minister Noxolo Kiviet says 5,812 salaried public servants illegally claimed social grants intended for needy citizens &#8211; with 33,833 social grants being cancelled after it was discovered that the applicants or beneficiaries had contravened the Social Assistance Act by furnishing false information. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/politics\/2024-01-02-thousands-of-civil-servants-illegally-claiming-social-grants\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/politics\/2024-01-02-thousands-of-civil-servants-illegally-claiming-social-grants\/\" target=\"_blank\">BusinessDay<\/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>SA&#8217;s rising foreign debt:&nbsp;<\/strong>The government&#8217;s total foreign debt has amounted to a face value of R601 billion, with total gross debt sitting at 11.4% &#8211; edging closer to treasury&#8217;s limit of 15%. Much of the loans were transacted rands, however, this is changing, and repayments are becoming increasingly pricier, with the rand weakening over the past 10 and 20 years by 58% and 95%, respectively. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/fin24\/economy\/sas-foreign-debt-is-on-the-rise-this-brings-danger-20240103\" 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>Budget cuts impact the building of schools:<\/strong>&nbsp;The Western Cape Education Department says that a R790 million budget cut by the Treasury in June last year has impacted its plans to build 21 new schools in the province. [<a href=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2024\/01\/02\/significant-budget-cuts-impacted-plans-to-build-21-new-schools-says-wced\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/ewn.co.za\/2024\/01\/02\/significant-budget-cuts-impacted-plans-to-build-21-new-schools-says-wced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">EWN<\/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>4 hour load shedding slots return to Joburg:&nbsp;<\/strong>City Power says that it has resolved the \u201cfrequent 2-hour load shedding\u201d issue that emerged as the city&#8217;s power utility took over handling outages from Eskom at the end of 2023. To resolve the problem, the utility said that it would be returning to 4-hour blocks of load shedding during higher stages. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/739943\/big-load-shedding-changes-for-joburg-4-hour-slots-are-back\/\" target=\"_blank\">BusinessTech<\/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;The rand weakened across major currencies as the dollar rose, which is underpinned by a confluence of factors, including elevated U.S. Treasury yields and a cautious turn in risk sentiment that&nbsp;weighed on Wall Street.  On Wednesday (3 January), the rand was trading at R18.56 to the dollar, R23.48 to the pound, and R20.34 to the euro. Oil is trading at $75.87 a barrel. [<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/currencies\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/currencies\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of civil servants illegally claiming social grants; SA&#8217;s rising foreign debt woes; budget cuts impacts plans to build schools; the return of 4 hour load shedding slots to Joburg. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":740045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[18993,26],"class_list":["post-740043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740043","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740043"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740063,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740043\/revisions\/740063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}