Here is what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Higher wage offer<\/strong>: The government and workers unions are getting closer to reaching an agreement on wage offers, with the state lifting its offer to 5.5% from 5% previously. This is the final offer. The offer is less than half the initial 12% that workers were demanding, but is higher than the current inflation rate of 2.9% and expected average of 4.5% for the year. The government raised its position from 4.7% a few weeks ago. [BusinessLive<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n ANC succession debate: <\/strong>A succession debate within the ANC has been circling around the party’s latest moves to reconfigure leadership structures in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal. The party announced on Monday that the structures in these provinces would be reconfigured and reinforced following a dismal performance in the 2024 elections. However, the ANC’s elective conference in 2027 is also in play and talks on who comes after president Cyril Ramaphosa polarised debates in the party’s NEC. [News24<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Death toll: <\/strong>Over 1,500 people died on South Africa’s roads over the festive season, marking another bloody year for travellers. The numbers were 4.2% higher than the year before, alarming road safety groups. Transport minister Barbara Creecy noted that pedestrian fatalities account for a large number of the fatalities. [ENCA<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eskom milestone:<\/strong> Power utility Eskom has hit the milestone of 300 days without load shedding, counting nine months since it last had to announce nationwide outages. The group is now focused on hitting the one-year target, while talking up its more positive trajectory. However, the positives strides are not without risks, warnings and downsides – particularly for end-users who face skyrocketing tariff hikes. [BusinessTech<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Markets:<\/strong> The rand continued trading weaker relative to the end of last year, but was ever so slightly stronger than its start to the week. Markets have been dominated by the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, who brings a degree of uncertainty to the narrative. The local units firmed up ahead of the inauguration and has maintained its 1% gain overnight. On Tuesday the rand is trading at R18.59\/USD, R22.84\/GBP and R19.30\/EUR. Oil is trading at $80 a barrel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are 5 important things happening in South Africa today (21 January 2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":667095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20398],"tags":[1875,8452,1164,5496],"class_list":["post-807780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5-things","tag-anc","tag-barbara-creecy","tag-eskom","tag-wages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807780","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=807780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807799,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807780\/revisions\/807799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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