Monday, March 1, 2010.

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

Making headlines today:

While negotiations continue on whether the first phase of the Gautrain will be ready for the FIFA World Cup, the Gauteng province has issued and closed a tender for bus transport on the Sandton to the OR Tambo International Airport route as well as five other routes, for the six-week duration of the sports event.

Gautrain Management Agency (GMA) CEO Jack van der Merwe says it's received 30 tenders, and is evaluating 22 of those.

The winning tender will be announced in the next two weeks.

Van der Merwe says GMA has been mandated with implementing the bus service for sports fans as the agency may be tasked to fulfill any transport function the Gauteng government sees fit.

The KwaZulu-Natal provincial government and Standard Bank have signed a memorandum of understanding committing them to a number of shared and individual activities to accelerate the identification of affordable housing projects across the province.

The parties will also cooperate to secure development financing for such projects and to expand the supply of housing to middle-income families.

The agreement was announced at the launch of the 1,5-billion-rand Woodmead integrated residential development, north of Durban, which would provide homes, work opportunities, schooling and recreation facilities for 3 500 families in a self-contained community covering 427 hectares.

Standard Bank Integrated Residential Development head Kevin Duncan noted that the MoU put the growing cooperation between public and private sectors in dealing with the country's housing gap, into a more tangible form.

Also making headlines:

BHP Billiton wants to build a $3,5-billion 2 500 MW hydro power plant in the DRC to support its proposed aluminum smelter.
Botswana Railway plans to add 160 open salt wagons to its fleet for ferrying bulk salt in Southern Africa.
South African farmers want the government to allow the use of maize in biofuels production in order to ease energy costs.
And, South African petrol pump prices will rise by 6c a litre from Wednesday.

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