If all goes according to plan, it won’t be long before residents in Jozi face fines for improperly managing their waste. While the move will definitely result in a fair amount of complaining, it’s arguable that recycling has been happening around the world for ages. In fact, it should be a habit and duty for all of us.
Yesterday, the Sunday Times carried a story about a dog attack. A four-year-old girl was mauled by a Rottweiler in the upmarket Hyde Park shopping centre last Monday. But what was unique about this? The dog’s handler is a dog whisperer and also claims to be “Africa’s number one dog expert.”
This week we have seen two interesting reasons why the information bill, in its current form, needed amending. We learned of South African sniper weapons in Libya, and we have now learned of the many millions Gauteng tax payers will likely fork out for the lack of passengers using the Gautrain.
The Beeld newspaper this morning reported that a Johannesburg school will be closed for a week after a break-out of mumps and swine flu. The King’s School, situated in the Sandton suburb of Linbro Park stopped classes last week after about six pupils contracted mumps and another two swine flu, said the school’s principal John Pilkington.
Johannesburg is undoubtedly the economic centre of Africa. With this follows the allure of prosperity and the chance to better ones life through economic empowerment and social status. Now the only centre for asylum seekers and refugees in Joberg will be closed after local businesses won a court application against the Department of Home Affairs.
South African police commissioners have notably enjoyed the odd perk here and there when it comes to matters of their private lives. It has emerged that Gauteng police commissioner, Mzwandile Petros, is no exception to this common occurrence and has a new two year lease costing R30 000 a month.
A new survey was recently done of the global capital cities of finance, innovation and tourism. The report graded 26 metros from Stockholm to Santiago on business opportunities, culture, livability, and innovation. Johannesburg, the only African city on the list, came in at number 25 – basically beating only Mumbai.
Remember the story about the Pied Piper of Hamlyn? He was the guy hired to lure rats away from the city by playing his magic pipe. The city of Johannesburg may be in need of its own modern day PPOH, given the rat infestation currently plaguing the CBD.
Gauteng’s top brass are being flushed out again for misappropriation of taxpayers’ money. This time it’s totalling a little over R12 million since 2005 on lavish refurbishments and renovations to the official Bryanston residence of the Gauteng Premier.
Today is an important day because it’s the day our President gives his state of the nation address. It should be an interesting one and I heard there may even be autographed heaven cards for sale afterwards. It’s therefore important to highlight some issues our Jozi brethren currently face and ask whether they are getting a fair deal.
This is sort of cool and sort of awful. Jozi thieves have stripped about 400 ‘high-tech traffic lights’ of their sim cards, modems and GPS systems, using the sim cards to make unlimited free phone calls. It will cost about R8,8 million to replace these fancy, legitimately robot-like traffic lights. Regular GPS-free traffic lights are unaffected.
I cruised up to Johannesburg on Friday morning with La Muse, The Dude and Salty. We were up for the highly anticipated launch of the new MINI Countryman. I checked the weather report and it mentioned the late 20’s, so I thought we might as well stay until Sunday evening. I mean, there could be worse things than lounging at The Westcliff Pool, right?
It is well understood that there are two oceans on either side of South Africa and 2oceansvibe should therefore not be restricted to just Cape Town. That’s probably why we recently launched the “What’s the vibe in Jozi” segment on 2oceansvibe Radio and have also incorporated a 5-day weather report for Johannesburg as well!