{"id":805558,"date":"2025-01-03T07:55:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T05:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=805558"},"modified":"2025-01-03T08:05:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T06:05:32","slug":"court-slams-government-contracts-with-no-money-and-border-red-flags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/5-things\/805558\/court-slams-government-contracts-with-no-money-and-border-red-flags\/","title":{"rendered":"Court slams government contracts with no money, and border red flags"},"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>Court slams government &#8216;IOU&#8217; payments:<\/strong> The Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that government departments cannot enter into contracts that exceed the amount appropriated for a particular service as this renders the contract unlawful and constitutionally invalid.\u00a0Parliament\u2019s Standing Committee on Public Accounts chairperson Songezo Zibi said that the judgment was significant and far-reaching as government departments repeatedly enter into contracts for which they have no money.\u00a0[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesslive.co.za\/bd\/national\/2025-01-02-government-contracts-with-no-money-to-pay-for-them-are-unlawful-court-rules\/\">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>Border red flags:<\/strong>&nbsp;Police have said that they are following all leads after an eNCA report highlighted the state of South Africa&#8217;s porous borders.&nbsp;At least 6,000 inmates escaped from a prison in Mozambique on Christmas Day, with the report showing some managing to cross into South Africa undetected.&nbsp;[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sabcnews.com\/sabcnews\/1000525-2\/\">eNCA<\/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>Zama zama standoff heads to ConCourt:<\/strong> A human rights group, Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua), has approached the Constitutional Court to appeal a December High Court ruling that dismissed its case. Macua seeks an order for the state to provide food, water, and medication to illegal miners (zama zamas) underground who are in a standoff with police and initiate rescue operations at the mine in Stilfontein. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/news24\/southafrica\/news\/a-fate-unworthy-of-any-human-being-stilfontein-zama-zama-saga-heads-to-concourt-20250103\">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>Temporary power outage at OR Tambo:<\/strong> Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) has said that it is closely monitoring the situation at OR Tambo International Airport after a \u201ctemporary power failure.\u201d Acsa said the outage was caused by a trip at municipal level, and assured that all operations will continue without disruption.&nbsp;[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/acsa-monitoring-or-tambo-international-airport-temporary-power-failure\/\">The Citizen<\/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 started the new year on a positive note on Thursday after a volatile end to 2024. On Friday (03 January), the rand was trading at R18.70 to the dollar, R23.15 to the pound, and R19.53 to the euro. Oil is trading at $76.16 a barrel. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/africa\/south-african-rand-starts-2025-front-foot-2025-01-02\/\">Reuters<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are 5 important things happening in South Africa today (03 January 2025). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":642089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20398],"tags":[18993],"class_list":["post-805558","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\/805558","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=805558"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805570,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805558\/revisions\/805570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}