{"id":770990,"date":"2024-05-08T08:05:35","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T06:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=770990"},"modified":"2024-08-19T16:56:56","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T14:56:56","slug":"5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1765","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/5-things\/770990\/5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today-1765\/","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>Healthcare Funders slam government over NHI:\u00a0<\/strong>The Board of Healthcare Funders has criticised the South African government&#8217;s &#8220;poor planning&#8221; for the National Health Insurance bill, noting at their 23rd annual conference that insufficient funds and a potential tax increase could burden those already struggling financially. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sabcnews.com\/sabcnews\/nhi-bill-a-reflection-of-governments-poor-planning-health-funders\/\">SABC<\/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>PIC open-minded on BHP-Anglo merger:<\/strong>\u00a0In a recent Business Day interview, David Masondo, chair of the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and major shareholder in Anglo, highlighted the PIC&#8217;s cautious but open-minded approach to the potential R700 billion merger between Anglo American and BHP. Masondo emphasised the importance of a decision that benefits its clients and South Africa&#8217;s financial markets, signalling a strategic patience stance on what could be the biggest mining deal in decades. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/companies\/mining\/2024-05-08-exclusive-pic-open-minded-on-bhp-anglo-merger\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Business Day<\/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>George building collapse rescue continues:<\/strong> Two more people have been pulled from the rubble of the collapsed construction site in George, Western Cape. As of 05h33 on 8 May 2024, 36 people had been extracted from the scene and of those, seven had died. There are still 39 people unaccounted for.&nbsp;[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/southafrica\/news\/live-george-building-collapse-4-dead-51-workers-trapped-20240507\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">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>Three political parties take IEC to ConCourt: <\/strong>Three political parties, the African Congress for Transformation, the Labour Party of South Africa, and the Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats are taking the Electoral Commission (IEC) to the Constitutional Court to contest their exclusion from the 2024 national and provincial elections. They argue they were unfairly barred due to the alleged malfunction of the IEC&#8217;s online portal, missing the submission deadline. However, the Electoral Court sided with the IEC, stating the system worked correctly at the crucial time. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sabcnews.com\/sabcnews\/938274-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SABC<\/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 rand was stronger on Tuesday, with volatility likely to pick up on U.S. employment data later this week, analysts said. On Wednesday (8 May), the rand was trading at R18.54 to the dollar, R23.15 to the pound, and R19.92 to the euro. Oil is trading at $82.74 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/south-african-rand-gains-awaits-us-jobs-data-2024-05-07\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Healthcare Funders slams gov over NHI; PIC open-minded on BHP-Anglo merger; George building collapse rescue continues; and parties take IEC to ConCourt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":642499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20398],"tags":[18993],"class_list":["post-770990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5-things","tag-5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770990","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=770990"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":771010,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770990\/revisions\/771010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}