Gauteng

Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi and provincial leaders will visit Khutsong on Friday, after two days of often-violent protests by residents over proposals to redemarcate the West Rand town. Protests broke out on Wednesday over the possible inclusion of the Merafong municipality into the North West.

Citizens of the Merafong municipality, which includes Carletonville, were not consulted on a decision to incorporate the area into the North West, an South African Communist Party spokesperson said on Thursday. The demarcation has failed the community, said Jomo Mogale, local chairperson of the SACP.

Hundreds of residents of Migson Manor in Lenasia South, Johannesburg, blocked the Golden Highway with burning tyres after a taxi knocked down and killed a teenager on Tuesday afternoon, police said. Migson Manor Residents’ Association spokesperson Emmanuel Mphelo said residents were very agitated.

A dragged-out land-claim process involving a group of farms near Heidelberg, Gauteng, has fuelled tensions and disrupted agricultural production, according to a committee of land owners. The Kudung community is claiming the 10 farms, said the community’s lawyer, Henri Bonsma.

Six proposed changes to the Gautrain line will save 50 of the homes originally earmarked for expropriation. Three of the houses — all in Pretoria — have provincial heritage value, Gautrain spokesperson Jack van der Merwe said in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Dozens of train passengers suffered injuries in an overnight head-on collision between the Trans Karoo express and the luxury Blue Train at Deelfontein. A police spokesperson said 74 people aboard the hotel-on-wheels and 182 travelling on the Trans Karoo express were injured in various degrees. The driver of the Trans Karoo was seriously hurt in the accident.

Gauteng roads are not public-transport friendly, Gauteng public transport, roads and works minister Ignatius Jacobs said on Tuesday. ”We need to make roads more friendly by creating dedicated public-transport lanes for buses and taxis,” he told a commuter indaba in Johannesburg.

The seclusion section of the psychiatric ward at the Dr George Mukhadi hospital in Ga-Rankuwa north of Pretoria was closed on Tuesday due to unsafe and unhygienic conditions, the Health Department said. Ministerial spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said the seclusion rooms had no toilets and the structure was also not in compliance with the Mental Health Act.

Gauteng’s car-free day on Thursday will be voluntary, the City of Johannesburg said. Speaking to the media on Tuesday, the city’s deputy director for transport management, Alfred Sam, said the city would not close any routes for private cars. He conceded that Johannesburg did not have the best transport system in the world, but urged everybody to participate.

Three men appeared in the Vereeniging Magistrate’s Court on Monday charged with the kidnapping of 10-year-old Liam Aspeling last week, Gauteng police said. The boy was snatched from the front of his mother’s home in Ennerdale on Tuesday. He was reunited with his family on Wednesday.

About 400 people gathered outside the Gauteng legislature on Monday where they formed a human chain around the building to mark International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Representing a variety of NGOs, the demonstrators called for a basic income grant for all.

Shouting and swearing at the Zimbabwean government will not help resolve problems there, President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday. South Africa’s approach — and that of the region — is to work together to find solutions to problems, he said at the launch of the African Editors’ Forum in Kempton Park, Gauteng.

The draft preliminary design report for the Gautrain Rapid Rail link was released for public comment on Friday. The report, released by the Gauteng department of public transport, roads and works, provides details of some of the stations planned between Johannesburg and Pretoria.