Friday, February 5, 2010.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Loni Prinsloo.

Making headlines today:

JSE-listed aviation company Comair has been granted two new African routes by the South African Air Licensing Council. It will start with scheduled flights from Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, and to Walvis Bay, in Namibia, soon.

The company operates the British Airways airline in the Southern African region and the kulula.com airline. It says that the additional routes will add to its existing regional African network.

Comair sales and route development executive manager Stuart Cochrane says that the granting of these new licences will bring much-needed competition to the regional African routes that have been dominated by State-owned airlines.

South Africa's Communications Minister, Siphiwe Nyanda, said on Thursday that State-owned signal distributor Sentech was in urgent need of a turnaround strategy.

He said that a task team had urged dramatic and immediate action if Sentech was to avoid lapsing into terminal decline.

Nyanda was reporting on the findings of the ministerial task team, which was appointed in June last year to investigate the affairs of Sentech, and the public broadcaster.

The task team found that the organisation's current situation was caused by several factors, prime among them being a new legal and regulatory regime that has opened the market for new entrants, as well as the absence of a clear and comprehensive information and communication technology industry framework.

Also making headlines:

Preliminary investigations point to the Corolla, Auris and Verso in the local Toyota vehicle recalls.
Vodacom says that it supports the interconnect rate cut scheduled for March.
Consulting Engineers South Africa will nominate its incumbent president for a position on the National Planning Commission.
And, Deutsche Bank sees more growth in ETFs.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit engineeringnews.co.za.

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