Thursday January 19, 2012.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Jessica Hannah.

Making headlines:

Democratic Alliance water and environment spokesperson Gareth Morgan said yesterday that Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa has overestimated the number of jobs that can be created through the new tyre recycling programme. He added that the initiative was unsustainable.

He also said that Minister Molewa, who unveiled the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative South Africa (or Redisa) on Tuesday, may have flouted sections of the Waste Tyre Regulations. This was by failing to publish the plan in the Government Gazette for a 30-day comment period or bring it to the attention of relevant organs of State and interested persons.

Redisa’s aim is to establish a network of up to 150 collection depots across the country, which would employ up to 15 000 people, including about 5 000 people in the informal sector within five years.

Morgan intended to submit Parliamentary questions during the first week of February to ask the Minister to clarify the situation and circumstances surrounding the approval of Redisa’s plan.

On Wednesday, a statement released by former Madagascar leader Marc Ravalomanana’s publicists said he would return to the Indian Ocean island "imminently".

It said details of his departure would be released closer to the time of the trip.

Exiled in South Africa since rebel troops helped topple him in 2009, Ravalomanana has been sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the killings of demonstrators by elite troops in the run up to his removal.

Madagascar's interim leader has said the return of the exiled former president risked stoking tensions on the island, which has been plagued by instability for most of the past three years.

A week of protests over fuel prices has put Nigeria's government under more pressure than ever to make good on long-unfulfilled promises to reform its notoriously inefficient and corrupt energy sector. And this time it will be harder not to act.

The powerful oligarchs in charge of Africa's largest oil industry have been attacked in the media and pilloried at rallies after their abrupt withdrawal of the fuel subsidy on New Year's Day unleashed protests that crippled the economy.

Although the immediate cause of the strikes and protests was fuel prices, protesters said the underlying anger was more about years of frustration at corruption and mismanagement of the country's huge oil wealth. Apparently sensitive to this, President Goodluck Jonathan and oil minister Diezani Allison-Madueke promised prompt action this week to implement long delayed reforms to the oil sector.

Also making headlines:
Oil group BP forecasts that renewables will be the fastest-growing energy segment over the next 20 years.

And, Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee looking into the Protection of State Information Bill has adopted an ambitious public hearing drive aimed at getting maximum input from as many South Africans as possible.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.