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Monday, April 26, 2010.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon de Ryhove.

Making headlines today:

Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) said that it had finished work on 69,7% of the vehicles to be recalled under its programme to repair potentially faulty acceleration mechanisms on Corolla, Auris and Verso vehicles.

TSAM spokesperson Leo Kok said that the original figure of 52 564 vehicles to be recalled had been cut to 40 860, as some of the entry-level Auris and Corolla models had been found to feature cable-driven acceleration mechanisms, which could not suffer from the same potential problem.

Toyota found that the acceleration mechanism on some of its models may deteriorate and become harder to depress, slow to return to idle or, in a a handful of cases, become stuck in a partially depressed position. 

This had lead to the global recall programme.

Kok added that the local Prius recall programme was 95,8% complete.

South Africa's former Reserve Bank Governor, Tito Mboweni, will join Goldman Sachs as an international advisor from June. This is his third high-profile appointment since leaving the central bank in November.

Mboweni, who was head of the SARB for a decade, has been appointed chairperson of mining group AngloGold Ashanti and packaging firm Nampak.

The US-based investment bank said his experience and knowledge of the political and financial environment would compliment its business capabilities in the region.

Goldman Sachs MD for South Africa Colin Coleman said that, in this capacity, Mboweni will provide strategic advice to the firm on business development opportunities, with a particular focus on South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

Also making headlines:

South African aluminium semifabricator Hulamin unveils the details of its 750-million-rand rights offer.
South Africa could learn lessons from Israel's solar successes.
South African Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus says that inflation targeting can't be blamed for massive job losses.
And, Britain's richest see their fortunes soar.

That's a round up of news making headlines today.