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place. the big. christmas card double. leg. darkness prevails as energy provider as struggles to keep the lights on across south africa business loses patience with rolling power cuts at the country's struggling energy supplier but president proposes says it will all be sorted out by march. and ghana relies on imports to feed the country's vast appetite for rice but now it wants to satisfy all domestic demand itself in only 3 years with a little help from some friends. this is business africa on the wu update on

african and global business news and we start in south africa where the worst blackouts for decades are continuing to hamper companies and households several large generators are struggling power utility eskom remain down following a week of heavy rains president cyril ramaphosa says the government will work with the company to stabilize the power grid by the end of march. in johannesburg these days business is increasingly done by candlelight or otherwise with the help of noisy generators. rolling blackouts are regularly plunging the city's usually busy streets into darkness and leaving many businesses almost completely empty. people feel very uncomfortable to come it's dark out outside we do have. generated versus not really helping us in a solution that people don't feel comfortable to come in the area. the rolling

power cuts are the result of long standing problems in south africa's energy supplier eskom apartheid era infrastructure is no longer up to the job of keeping the lights on and many of the costly new plants like this one are either behind shuttle or prone to malfunction. those factors out it's a heavy rains of the past week mean the power cuts are at their worst for a decade many of the blackouts are intentional an attempt by eskom to share the supply around through a process known as load shedding in johannesburg people are adapting to a world without electricity some are even managing to look on the bright side even while sitting in the dark what forces you to deal with not having technology not having connectivity sitting by candle having a conversation not looking at your i phone and getting out of the house because you can't cook any dinner when. it's very difficult to deal with. really

with the punches trying to. see how we can get things done with. the south africans maybe relishing the challenges of the rolling blackouts but for others whose business is depend on electricity they simply don't have these really are dark days. and the heavy rains mentioned in that report are causing problems beyond pockets video uploaded on to social media shows blocks of trash flowing down the river with vast numbers of plastic bottles on the response local residents say it happens frequently when heavy rains hit cleanup takes weeks plastic waste ends up of humility on the durban beach front of the country's most popular tourist attractions. it's a changing of the law god excuse the pun at the e.c.b.

as former international monetary fund chief christine lagarde begins at 10 atop the european central bank as expected less lift the eurozone interest rates on hold at historic lows are the 1st major the bank also has also confirmed that it is again pumping $20000000000.00 euros of new money into circulation each month but big changes could be a 1st is that god announced a root and branch review of the e.c.b. which she obviously things is long overdue. and with me other students to talk about all of those changes is mark as well economists from the university of gulen but 1st of all let's listen to what mr that had to say about the changes in a very easy monetary policy goals new challenges are taking place from demographic changes aging of societies predominantly in the advanced economies but also massive

technological changes and breakthrough especially when they're compounded and climate change has finally reached the main stream debate and is hitting the screen on of everyone who is interested in the future and has policy responsibilities finally conventional wisdom that used to apply has been challenged and monetary policy globally has had to explore uncharted territories. referred to climate change technology issues that are coming up inequality isn't all that the remit of politicians yes on one hand it is of course but she also made it very explicit she wants to review the strategy of the how we conduct monetary policy and she said it is overdue in 16 years it hasn't been changed and we have a lot of things which has happened since then including technology including climate including equality so all this has to be reviewed in

a you know broad perspective of a new monetary policy strategy in the light of keeping the mandate of price ability which she made at least 2 or 3 times very clear in the press conference prosperity we were told whether in a 2nd but how do you make monetary policy green for example if we're looking at climate change well i think it's probably something like to be in the land of the larsen solid argument in that discussion which has to take place in the entire world. how we confine and you know the green deal of was left on the line which you mentioned missive that i've mentioned so it's not that the e.c.b. itself is going to be green it's the argument taishan about how we change the world in terms of that. you know massive issues around the climate where the e.c.b. it has to have a point. she makes it sound though like the e.c.b.

is way behind the curve needs a radical overhaul should be we. should be we worried i actually was a bit worried when i listened to it today because as you mentioned 16 years this is the entire term of mr druggy and mr to see as their in their presidencies on one hand she said we've got to be ahead of the curve was in terms of the box in technology issues so yes we can be a bit worried that the e.c.b. hasn't looked into its strategy for the last 16 years so it's high time you think it's high time yes it's the right person for it. tools and goals under review one of which is keeping inflation near 2 percent how likely is it to move away from the . she made that point at least 2 or 3 times today again you know they're close to but i mean. i mean the she used basically the phrases of mr drug she's not going to change that until we have a new strategy on the monitor policy whether they're off it might be changed in

terms of that inflation target is an open issue she is not alone in governing the european central bank do you think with these ambitious goals that she's sort of outlined can she expect resistance from her fellow central bankers from the euro zone i think she follows in kind of an embedded strategy because she mentioned again $23.00 times that she wants to do that together with the entire governing council of the e.c.b. and not she did say that you know in the way of business druggy did it at least in the last years of his tenure so she wants to get the entire council behind what needs to be changed find a compromise she said i'm not a dove i'm not a hawk i'm an old you know a bird or some wisdom or i consider myself to be somewhat old so she made absolutely clear that she has her style and her style is very. you know integrity if once in bed the entire council and then with her background of

a politician she's probably be much better prepared for that job of them just a druggie who was you know a top ranked economist who let the e.c.v. drawl be drawn into politics. michel so thank you very much for the thank you. it's 3 u.s. house of representatives has passed a bill imposing sanctions on the russian led gas pipeline project north stream to the new sanctions target companies that own the ships needed to lay the massive pipes the project depends on the bill has the potential to stop construction just as it's nearing completion. only a few companies in the world possess the technology to laine deep sea pipelines none of them is russian if they continue to work on nordstrom to they could find themselves cut off from doing business in the us their assets there might be frozen and people working on the ships would no longer be allowed to enter america the

1230 kilometer long pipeline is a subsidiary of russia's gazprom and is meant to transport natural gas under the baltic sea from russia to germany directly circumventing ukraine the project is more than 80 percent completed and is supposed to start operating in mid 2020. north stream 2 has the potential to double the amount of russian gas imported by germany the country needs more gas as a stable source of energy when it stops using coal and nuclear power. democrat and republican lawmakers in the u.s. fear that pipeline could give moscow greater political leverage over germany and the entire european union which the u.s. senate is expected to approve the bill by the end of the week and president trump said on wednesday that he will sign it into law his soon as possible. ghana depends largely on the rise imports to feed its people shipping and over

a 1000000 metric tons a year now the country wants to produce all the rise of consumes itself inside 3 years that's an ambitious plan but there is help and sodium led by the alliance for green revolution in africa with funding from german development bank k s w is helping farmers boost production with improved arise seeds and farming that's 63 year old mohammad isa haku is one of over 100000 smallholder farmers benefiting from the development banks program with access to improved rice seeds and better farming methods you know harvest says rice twice a year tribute to him was how fair. it was yes for 6 months before this one didn't do this and that iowa and able to. leave my livelihood. with funding from the german government the program not only focuses on seeds and farming methods but also on effective marketing systems. how

do you promote partnerships among private sector among public sector and development partners soledad we can drive gunness i could talk to us on this basically that's what we're doing rice factories like this one in northern uganda are now processing most of the paddy rice from smallholder farmers this facility alone has processed over 20000 metric tons of rice the government hopes high levels of local production will make it unnecessary to import rice within the next 3 years . if i'm in the business in thank you very much for watching.

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