Gauteng

Political parties have until Tuesday to rectify mistakes on their lists of proportional representation candidates for the March 1 election, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said at Monday’s handover to Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa of the 2004 electoral atlas on poll behaviour in South Africa.

Malaria has claimed the lives of six of 483 people hospitalised for the mosquito-borne disease in Gauteng this year. The health department has denied that there is an outbreak of malaria in the province. ”We don’t have that breed of mosquitoes in Gauteng,” spokesperson Bhungani ka Mzolo said on Monday.

The Gauteng department of local government on Sunday announced it would be looking into closing all open manholes that were no longer in use. This follows the death of Mpho Raliete (3) of Katlehong on the East Rand, who died after falling into a manhole on Friday. The child’s body was washed through the sewage line and found 15km away at the treatment plant in Kliprivier.

A total of 108 people, most of them from the Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress, joined the newly formed National Democratic Convention (Nadeco) in Gauteng on Saturday. ”Every week, we receive leaders of substance,” said Ziba Jiyane, Nadeco’s founder and national leader.

Sewage swept into the Vaal River by recent rains have all but destroyed the river’s ecosystem, media reports said on Tuesday. The Eco-Care Trust, an environmental organisation committed to the conservation of fish and rivers, said tonnes of dead fish have been floating downriver since the weekend.

The Gauteng Department of Education has merged two under-performing schools, Altem Secondary and Orlando Secondary in Orlando, Soweto, it said in a statement on Thursday. The new school will be located at the Orlando Secondary School premises. The step was taken to ”better utilise resources at these schools to ensure quality education”.

South African horse racing was struck by yet another tragedy when newly qualified jockey LJ Katjedi (26) died in a car accident on Wednesday night. He had qualified as a jockey on January 3, only eight days before his death, and was due to ride his first races as a professional jockey on Wednesday at the Vaal.

The City of Johannesburg removed 441 shacks from the Jukskei River banks on Friday following this week’s floods in Diepsloot. ”Temporary accommodation has been provided to the victims while the clean-up process is happening,” said city spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane.

The body of a woman who drowned on Wednesday after her shack was swept away by a river in Diepsloot outside Johannesburg has been found, Gauteng police said. Superintendent Eugene Opperman, of the province’s water wing and diving unit, said the 30-year-old woman was found just after 10am.