Lerato Mbele set to return to television from October as presenter of the new weekly show Africa Business Report on BBC World News.

BBC World News

After an experiment lasting just over a year, Lerato Mbele who joined the Newsday radio show of BBC World Service in June 2012 is returning to television from 5 October as the presenter of a new show on BBC World News (DStv 400 / TopTV 400), Africa Business Report.

Africa Business Report will be a new weekly business TV programme on BBC World News, similar to CNN Marketplace Africa which Robyn Curnow is doing weekly on CNN International (DStv 401).

Lerato Mbele abruptly left CNBC Africa (DStv 410) in February last year after a massive falling out with the African business news channel and then joined the BBC.

Now she will be back on television with Africa Business Report which will be produced from the BBC production centre in Johannesburg and which the BBC says will utilise the expertise of BBC correspondents in 48 African countries.

Africa Business Report will focus on Africa's latest business and technology news through stories and high profile interviews.

Lerato Mbele leaves CNBC Africa as star anchor slams the channel: 'I had my doubts about them when I left the SABC to join them'.

Lerato Mbele has left CNBC Africa (DStv 410), resigning with immediate effect, and leaving the African business channel without its star anchor and network executives scrambling to fill presenter gaps on the schedule.

Lerato Mbele who left the SABC and joined the African business channel's as it's star anchor when CNBC Africa launched in 2007 had apparently had enough. She resigned on Wednesday and left immediately. CNBC Africa made no announcement to the press and hasn't acknowledged Lerato Mbele's sudden on-air absence. Media enquiries to CNBC Africa made Tuesday evening about Lerato Mbele and what happened, were not immediately returned.

Lerato Mbele dumped CNBC Africa last week with apparently a lot of bad blood between her and the channel, slamming CNBC Africa and reportedly saying ''I had my doubts about the decision when I left the SABC to join them''.

Leaving CNBC Africa was apparently one of Lerato Mbele's New Year's resolutions she made in January after threatening to leave in September 2011. She presented The Regional Round Up, Captains of Industry and got her new business show Beyond Markets in June 2010.

Meanwhile CNBC Africa quickly wiped all traces of the senior anchor from the CNBC Africa website.

It's a shocking development and a sad end for both Lerato Mbele as well as the business channel. Both had much more buzz and street cred when CNBC Africa launched four years ago but both Lerato Mbele and CNBC Africa lost a lot of both as interest radically declined and withered the past few years.  

Programming note: CNBC Africa's Lerato Mbele covering the World Economic Forum from Davos from tomorrow.

The business channel CNBC Africa (DStv 410) is sending Lerato Mbele to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos from where, from tomorrow until Friday, she will be covering the conference of international leaders and business titans and do several interviews with South African and African leaders.

CNBC Africa says Lerato Mbele will interview Pravin Gordhan, the South African minister of finance, Rob Davies, the South African minister of trade industry and other African delegates at the WEF in Davos such as the president of Ghana, the prime minister of Kenya and the president of Tanzania. CNBC Africa will cover the WEF from tomorrow until 28 January.