{"id":748830,"date":"2024-02-06T07:58:43","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T05:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=748830"},"modified":"2024-02-06T07:59:44","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T05:59:44","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1704","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/748830\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1704\/","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>Johannesburg approves 20-year IPP plan:&nbsp;<\/strong>The City of Johannesburg has approved a 20-year plan with independent power producers (IPPs) aimed at reducing the effects of load-shedding on the city. City Power plans to cut the amount of energy it procures from Eskom by 5% in 2025. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2024-02-05-johannesburg-council-approves-20-year-plan-with-independent-power-producers\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2024-02-05-johannesburg-council-approves-20-year-plan-with-independent-power-producers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">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>Budget cuts inhibit the hiring of doctors:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Health Minister Joe Phaahla told a press conference yesterday that the high number of unemployed medical graduates is a result of the increasing pressure on healthcare budgets. Currently, there are 645 unemployed junior doctors waiting to be placed after completing their community service in December.\u00a0[<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/748862\/doctor-salaries-in-south-africa-are-a-problem-says-health-minister\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">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>Mining Indaba kicks off:\u00a0<\/strong>The 30th instalment of the annual Mining Indaba kicked off on Monday.\u00a0President Cyril Ramaphosa was addressing the industry titans, saying that there needs to be a focus on ways to fast-track recovery in the mining sector, as an unstable electricity supply and a logistics crisis have piled pressure on the sector, leading to a drop in output. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ewn.co.za\/2024\/02\/05\/mining-indaba-ramaphosa-focuses-on-fast-tracking-mining-sector-recovery\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.ewn.co.za\/2024\/02\/05\/mining-indaba-ramaphosa-focuses-on-fast-tracking-mining-sector-recovery\" 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>Sodi slapped with over R400 million tax bill<a href=\"https:\/\/city-press.news24.com\/\"><\/a>:<\/strong>\u00a0A controversial businessman has been issued a R400 million tax bill from the South African Revenue Service (SARS). He was given 10 business days to respond to SARS\u2019 demand. If a payment structure is not agreed to, SARS will seek an order from the high court to render his estate executable. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/citypress\/news\/edwin-sodi-slapped-with-a-r400-million-tax-bill-20240205\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/citypress\/news\/edwin-sodi-slapped-with-a-r400-million-tax-bill-20240205\">City Press<\/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>\u00a0On Monday, the South African rand weakened as the US dollar continued its rise due to the US Federal Reserve&#8217;s potential continuation of inflation-fighting interest rate increases. On Tuesday (6 February), the rand was trading at R19.04 to the dollar, R23.92 to the pound, and R20.49 to the euro. Oil is trading at $78.21 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/africa\/south-african-rand-flat-us-dollar-trades-slightly-lower-2023-02-06\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/africa\/south-african-rand-flat-us-dollar-trades-slightly-lower-2023-02-06\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joburg approved 20-year IPP plan; budget cuts hurting hiring of doctors; mining indaba kicks off; businessman slapped with R400 million tax bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":730355,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872,23],"tags":[18993],"class_list":["post-748830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748830","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=748830"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748902,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748830\/revisions\/748902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}