Economy & business

In southern Africa, business is booming for a popular Malawian winery, which makes Linga fruit wine. Linga is made from guava, plums and even some local flowers. The winery’s owner has been expanding into international markets while giving back to his community. For VOA, Lameck Masina has the story from Lilongwe.
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Africa needs to reform its systems for buying and selling land and invest aggressively in urban infrastructure to create jobs, end poverty and reduce cities’ high living costs, the World Bank said Thursday.

Africa’s urban population will double over the next 25 years, reaching 1 billion people by 2040, it said.

But complicated procedures for land transactions, a lack of urban planning and under-investment in infrastructure connecting homes, jobs and shops are hampering development, the bank said.

“How can we best prepare for the unprecedented wave of people moving to towns and cities to pursue their hopes and dreams?” asked the World Bank’s vice president for Africa, Makhtar Diop, via videoconference. “African cities, in order to be drivers for economic growth, in order to be the platforms for poverty elimination, they really need to be connected and open to the world.”

Network of trains, buses needed

The bank called on governments to make transport connections in rapidly growing cities a priority, saying the lack of a reliable network of buses and trains had a negative impact on the economy.

In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, seven out of 10 people either spend an hour walking to work or on a minibus, which means they can only reach about 20 percent of the city’s potential jobs, the bank said in a report.

“Nairobi — a metropolis of 3 million people — in reality functions as a set of villages with very local markets because people cannot move efficiently across the city,” said Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, the bank’s director for Social, Urban, Rural, Resilience Global Practice.

Vicious cycle

African cities are almost 30 percent more expensive than other countries at similar income levels, the bank said.

Housing is 55 percent more costly, and food prices are 35 percent higher than in other low- and middle-income countries.

This creates a vicious cycle, driving up wages, reducing business profits and deterring investment.

“It’s by reducing the cost of living in African cities that we will be able to create the type of jobs that are needed for Africans to escape poverty,” Diop said.

Land prices in some African cities are as high as in the United States because there is a shortage of land that can be easily and safely traded, the report said.

“There is enough physical land; there is not enough tradable land with clear property rights,” said Ijjasz-Vasquez. “Therefore the prices have gone absolutely crazy.”

Corruption, inefficiency major problems

Corruption and inefficiency are major problems in many African land ministries. Investors risk being given fake title deeds, or finding their plot has multiple titles, experts say, with swathes of land being traded informally because they have not been demarcated.

Urban plans, that lay out zones for houses, streets and public spaces, must be respected, Ijjasz-Vasquez said.

“The efficiency of Manhattan today was due to a very simple urban plan, on one sheet of paper, that was agreed and enforced by everybody,” he said. “They were able to grow a city in an organized way that allowed it to be efficient for the next two centuries.”

Lack of decent housing an issue

Money also needs to be poured into decent housing, with up to two-thirds of residents in cities like Lagos living in slums where more than three people share a room, the bank said.

Ijjasz-Vasquez praised Senegal for introducing a law enabling people with temporary occupancy permits in urban areas to convert them into permanent title deeds at no cost.

“They can start investing in housing because their properties are more secure,” he said.
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Wind energy has surpassed hydropower as the biggest source of renewable electricity in the United States following the sector’s second-biggest quarter ever for new installations, a wind industry trade group said Thursday.

Wind installations totaled 82,183 megawatts at the end of 2016, enough to power 24 million homes, the American Wind Energy Association said in its fourth-quarter market report.

By comparison, U.S. hydroelectric capacity is about 80,000 megawatts, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

Big fourth quarter for wind

Wind installations soared to 6,478 MW in the fourth quarter, accounting for nearly 80 percent of all of last year’s wind installations. The fourth quarter was the industry’s largest for installed capacity since the fourth quarter of 2012.

The 8,303 MW added for the year represented more than $13.8 billion in investment.

Just three turbine makers — General Electric Co, Vestas Wind Systems A/S and Siemens AG — accounted for up to 95 percent of the U.S. turbine market in 2016.

Texas has more than 20 MW of installed wind capacity, or nearly a quarter of the market. Iowa is the second-biggest wind state, and Oklahoma overtook California for third place at the end of 2016.

The first offshore wind project in the United States also came online in the fourth quarter, the 30 MW Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island.

More wind power coming

More than 10,000 MW of wind is under construction in the United States, about half of which is in Texas. New Mexico’s wind industry is growing rapidly, with 1,300 MW under construction. Once completed, those projects will double the size of New Mexico’s installed wind capacity. 

Corporations and others outside the utility industry have become major purchasers of wind energy, accounting for 39 percent of capacity contracted in 2016. Projects for Google, Amazon and General Motors were completed in the fourth quarter.
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More than 700 people took to the streets in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Thursday to protest against the government’s economic policy in a sign of mounting public anger in the oil producer grappling with recession.

Africa’s largest economy is mired in its first recession for 25 years as low oil prices have hammered public finances and foreign reserves while driving up annual inflation to almost 20 percent.

President Muhammadu Buhari was elected in 2015 on pledges to diversify the economy and fight corruption. But critics say he has made little progress, with Nigeria still heavily dependent on crude exports whose price has halved since 2014.

The 74-year-old former military ruler is currently on medical leave in Britain.

“The Buhari administration came to power on the promise of change,” said Ismail Bello, a labour union and protest leader.

“We are yet to feel the impact of change. We are rather feeling the pain of lack of good governance, we are feeling the pain of corruption, we are feeling the pain of joblessness,” he said.

The protesters marched to the presidential villa to see Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who asked for patience.

“Every time you fight corruption the way we are trying to fight corruption, there is a major fight back, because corruption in this country is wealthy, powerful, influential and it is in every aspect of our lives,” Osinbajo said.

“Things might be difficult today, but I am completely sure if we stay the course this country will not only get out of recession but always go to the path of sustainable development,” he said.

There was also a smaller demonstration in the commercial capital Lagos.

Buhari has been in Britain since mid-January for treatment for an unspecified medical condition and, with no indication of when he might return, many Nigerians suspect his health is worse

than officials admit.

Hundreds of people had already staged a similar protest on Monday in Abuja and other cities.
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A small U.S. manufacturing company is growing and hiring more people, in part because of lessons it learned from discovering revolutionary processes for making lobster traps and applying those skills to other projects, such as security fencing for the U.S. border with Mexico.

Riverdale Mills has expanded from 60 people to 185 employees during the past few years, and Chief Executive Officer Jim Knott says he is trying to hire another 35 workers. The expansion comes at a time when about one-third of U.S. manufacturing jobs nationwide have disappeared because of trade problems and a rising tide of automation.

The Northbridge, Massachusetts, firm says its wire mesh products are used in most of the lobster traps in the United States and Europe, replacing traditional wooden devices. Riverdale uses proprietary processes to improve its rustproofing and preserve the rust protection in harsh environments. A government report says commercial landings of American lobsters totaled 67 million kilograms and were valued at $567 million in 2014.

Lessons from lobstering inform other designs, including security fences that protect nuclear facilities, U.S. embassies and borders. Knott would like to sell more security fence as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to put a wall along the Mexican border, but says the government’s plans and specifications are not yet clear.  

Riverdale’s products are also used in the aquaculture industry to help grow oysters and fish in environments that pose a challenge for many materials. That could also lead to more sales and jobs, because a report from Grand View Research, a business consulting firm in San Francisco, says aquaculture is expanding as demand for healthy protein grows and stocks of some wild caught fish falter.

Riverdale can make thousands of different kinds of mesh out of steel and other materials. It draws steel rods through ever smaller openings until it gets wire of just the right thickness. The wires are then arranged in a crisscross pattern on huge, highly automated, noisy machines that can apply hundreds of welds at a time.  

The completed mesh is then run through a vat that holds many tons of molten, glowing zinc, a process that yields a rust-resistant product that can survive in saltwater. For lobster traps and other marine applications, the mesh may also be coated with a plant-based plastic powder that offers further protection.

Riverdale has expanded the proportion of its products that are exported, recently rising to 45 percent. Knott says exports are one key reason the firm has been able to grow.
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President Donald Trump told airline and airport executives Thursday that he supports privatizing America’s air traffic control system, according to a top airline industry lobbyist who was in the meeting.

Nick Calio, president and CEO of Airlines for America, the trade association that represents the major airlines, said after the White House meeting that Trump was “extraordinarily positive” when airline executives urged him to spin off air traffic control operations from the Federal Aviation Administration and place them under the control of a private, nonprofit corporation.  

That corporation would most likely be dominated by the major airlines.

Asked if Trump committed to back a bill to do that, Calio said: “I think he’s on track to do that.”

Airlines have complained the FAA is taking too long to modernize the air traffic system. Republican congressman Bill Shuster, chairman of the House transportation committee, introduced legislation to privatize the system last year, but the bill stalled after opposition from other top lawmakers and from business aircraft operators.

Business aircraft operators fear the corporation’s board would be dominated by airlines, and that they would lose access to larger airports to make more room for airlines.

WATCH:  Trump’s remarks to airline CEOs

Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines, told Trump during the meeting the top priority for helping airlines would be to “modernize the air traffic control system.” He complained that money spent on the system has not helped improve it in the past.

“I hear we’re spending billions and billions of dollars, it’s a system that’s totally out of whack,” Trump said. The president asked why airline corporations had allowed the government to invest in a faulty system. Kelly said airlines are not “in control” of those decisions.

Trump said he believes the system could potentially work better if FAA was run by a pilot. The current administrator, Michael Huerta, a holdover from the Obama administration, isn’t a pilot.

FAA officials maintain that they have made significant progress over the past 10 years of the modernization effort, and that airlines have begun to reap the benefits of those changes.

Besides Southwest, Trump met with the chief executives of Delta, United, and JetBlue, executives from air cargo companies, and officials from several airports.
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The White House is rushing to the defense of Ivanka Trump’s company _ the latest sign the president can’t seem to separate the presidency from his family’s businesses.

President Donald Trump added to a string of presidential firsts on Wednesday, and drew fire from ethics lawyers, with a Twitter attack on Nordstrom. The Seattle-based retailer stoked Trump’s rage by dropping his daughter Ivanka’s clothing and accessory line.

The implication, intended or not: Hurt my daughter’s business, and the Oval Office will come after you.

“My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom,” the president tweeted. “She is a great person – always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!”

The government-led cheerleading for Ivanka Trump’s private enterprise didn’t end there.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, in an interview Thursday with Fox News from the White House briefing room, encouraged people to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff.” She boasted that she was giving the brand  “a free commercial here.”

While Trump himself is not subject to the standards of ethical conduct for federal employees, Conway is. Among the rules: An employee shall not use his or her office “for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise.”

Ivanka Trump does not have a specific role in the White House but moved to Washington with her husband, who is one of Trump’s closest advisers. She followed her father’s approach on business ties by handing over operating control of her fashion company but retaining ownership of it.

Though Trump has tweeted about companies such as Boeing, Carrier and General Motors, ethics experts say this time was different. It involved his daughter’s business, which raises conflict-of-interest concerns.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was responding to an “attack on his daughter” when he posted the tweet and that “he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.”

WATCH: Spicer on Trump’s Nordstrom tweet

The Ivanka Trump flare-up follows revelations that first lady Melania Trump expected to develop “multi-million dollar business relationships” tied to her presence in the White House, according to a lawsuit she filed on Monday.

Ethics experts have criticized Trump’s plan to separate himself from his sprawling real estate business by handing managerial control to his two adult sons. The experts want him to sell his company. Most modern presidents have sold their financial holdings and put the cash raised in a blind trust whose investments remained unknown to them.

Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert, said the Nordstrom tweet is problematic because other retailers may think twice now about dropping the Ivanka Trump brand for fear of getting criticized publicly by the president. She said it was especially disturbing that Trump retweeted his message on the official White House account.

“The implicit threat was that he will use whatever authority he has to retaliate against Nordstrom, or anyone who crosses his interest,” said Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Clark defended the president’s right to use his personal Twitter account to express his views, however. She noted that government workers recently set up alt-EPA accounts to criticize the president’s policies.

“A government employee, even a president, is allowed to tweet in his personal capacity,” she said.

One of the president’s fiercest ethics critics, Norman Eisen, described the tweet differently – a “bullying” tactic beneath the dignity of the president’s office.

“This is a shot across the bow to everybody who is doing business with Trump or his family,” said Eisen, who was President Barack Obama’s chief ethics counselor. “It’s warning them: Don’t withdraw their business.”

Eisen joined with other legal scholars and lawyers to sue the president last month for allegedly violating a clause in the Constitution that prohibits government officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments. Though other legal scholars disagree, Eisen said such payments include foreign diplomats staying at Trump’s new Washington D.C. hotel and holding events there and at the other Trump venues.

Trump and his top aides have repeatedly said that Americans do not care about what Eisen and other ethics critics say. “Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world,” Trump wrote on Twitter Nov. 21.

Two surveys released in January show that’s not entirely the case. A Quinnipiac University poll found that about 60 percent of registered voters were at least somewhat concerned that the president would “veto a law that would be good for the country because it would hurt his business interests.” And a Pew Research Center poll found that 57 percent of American adults were at least somewhat concerned that Trump’s businesses could  “conflict with his ability to serve the country’s best interests.”

Yet Trump seems to have calculated that his base of supporters forgives – and maybe even encourages – his protective bluster about his family businesses.

Nordstrom reiterated Wednesday that its decision was based on the brand’s performance, not politics. The company said sales of Ivanka Trump items had steadily declined over the past year, particularly in the last half of 2016, “to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.”

Retailers drop brands all the time because of poor performance, said brand consultant Allen Adamson. But given a highly charged political environment, perception is reality for loyal Trump fans.

“It is clearly hard for Nordstrom to tell the story that it is dropping [the brand] for business reasons,” said Adamson, founder of the firm Brand Simple.
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A group of conservative thinkers led by leaders from the Reagan and Bush administrations have proposed what they are calling a “Conservative Answer to Climate Change.”

The group, including two former U.S. secretaries of state – James Baker and George Shultz – held a press conference Wednesday in Washington to unveil its plan.

Confronting the threat

The plan, available online, opens with a simple admission: “the risks associated with future warmings are so severe that they should be hedged.”

Team members were also willing to openly call out their Republican colleagues for refusing to confront the issue.

“For too long,” the group says, “many  Republicans have looked the other way, forfeiting the policy initiative to those who favor growth-inhibiting command-and-control regulations, and fostering a needless climate divide between the GOP and the scientific, business, military, religious, civic and international mainstream.”

Looking to regain that initiative, the team unveiled its plan which centers around four pillars. The first pillar is an old idea made new again: a carbon tax.

It’s just what it says it is – a tax on planet warming emissions from oil, coal and natural gas.

In this case, the team is suggesting a tax on carbon starting at $40 for roughly every metric ton of emissions.

The second pillar demands that any money made off of that tax be sent directly to U.S. consumers. And they do mean directly, by way of “dividend checks, direct deposits or contributions to their individual retirement accounts.”

The third pillar sets out the way we deal with the world. It looks to punish polluters by that same carbon tax on countries that are big polluters. Any money made from that tariff would go directly to American citizens.

And once the plan is in place, the fourth pillar kicks in: An end to “the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory authority over carbon dioxide emissions … including an outright repeal of the Clean Power Plan.”

Devil in the details

It sounds simple. But it is also a tax. The Trump administration and the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate are looking to cut taxes, not raise them. So far, there has been little reaction from Capitol Hill or the White House.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the plan and would only say: “we have nothing to announce on that.”

And some environmental groups, while backing a carbon tax in general, are less excited about the prospect of abandoning the progress made during the last administration.

The Natural Resources Defense Council put out a statement that a carbon tax alone won’t solve the problem.

But whether it succeeds or not, one of the real goals is to give conservatives a chance to get beyond what many see as their history of climate change denial.  “…this is an opportunity to demonstrate the power of the conservative canon by offering a more effective, equitable and popular climate policy based on free markets, smaller government and dividends for all Americans.”
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Madam C.J. Walker embodies the quintessential American success story, as someone who fought seemingly insurmountable odds to become one of the 20th century’s most successful self-made woman entrepreneurs.

The daughter of former slaves, Walker built a cosmetics empire selling hair care and beauty products for African-American women. By the time she died at age 51, she was among the first African-American millionaires in the United States. It was just over 50 years after the end of slavery. 

“She was a woman who provided employment for thousands of women and she used her money and her influence as a philanthropist and a political activist,” said A’Lelia Bundles, who speaks glowingly of her famous great-great grandmother.

Bundles, a former television news executive and biographer, spent decades researching the life of her famous ancestor.

“She really embodies the dream, the American dream, with opportunity for everyone, with the ability to take your God-given talents and to educate yourself and then to do something for others,” said Bundles. 

Unfortunate upbringing

Madam C.J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana, in 1867, was orphaned at age 7 and married at 14, but her husband died a few years later, according to Bundles.

“So, there were all of these blows, all of these things were stacked against her, but somehow she had such a survival instinct, soaking up everything she saw around her” she said. 

Self-made millionaire

Following her experience as a sales agent for Annie Malone’s black hair care business, Poro, Walker decided to create her own line of hair care products.

She saw the opportunity as a means of providing for her family, primarily her daughter A’Lelia.

“Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower,” sold in homes and churches, helped catapult her business. Bundles says Walker traveled across the country, knowing that a black woman somewhere would be in need of her hair care line.

“Walker’s experiences enabled the self-made businesswoman to develop key marketing skills that would drive her future success,” she said.

As part of her marketing strategy, Walker utilized her own image as the before and after for her advertisements, while also being on the seal of the products. One would also find her advertisements in black-owned newspapers.

Additionally, she printed business cards, fliers, and created various packaging to get her name out in black communities across America. Walker was known for giving her customers more than hair products, but offering them a lifestyle, according to Bundles. 

Her hard work paid off. In May 1918, Walker moved into her brand new estate outside New York City. This caused surprise and dismay among her white neighbors but did not deter Walker. 

Empowering African American women

Walker used her fortune to hire women at all levels of her company. Bundles says Walker wanted them to know that their roles would be as leaders in their community. 

She held the first national convention of her sales agents in 1917.

According to Bundles, in Walker’s keynote speech, the businesswoman said, “I want you as Walker Agents to show the world that you care not just about yourself but about others.”

At the end of the convention, the women sent a telegram to President Woodrow Wilson urging him to support legislation to make lynching a federal crime.

“She wanted them to speak up; she wanted them to use their power and their influence and their money to make a difference,” Bundles said. 

Working for Walker provided the women a means to provide for their family and to be economically independent.

Bundles notes a former worker once said, “‘C.J. Walker made it possible for a black woman to make more money in a day than she could in a month working in somebody’s kitchen.’ So, this was really showing women, who would have been sharecroppers and maids and laundresses, how they could support their families and be their own bosses.”

Maintaining Walker’s legacy

When Madam C.J. Walker died in 1919, she left tens of thousands of dollars to charitable organizations and schools, leaving behind a legacy of political activism while establishing a pattern of corporate giving.

Bundles is committed to maintaining Walker’s legacy.

“For all my life, I’ve been trying to tell Madam’s story and really it’s a labor of love just to make sure people know about her and the empowerment she gave to other women,” Bundles said. “Madam Walker’s legacy lives in her philanthropy as well as in an amazing line of hair care products.”
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Colombia’s chief prosecutor said Wednesday that suspicions of illegal campaign contributions to President Juan Manuel Santos are based on testimony of a rancher connected to the leader’s opponents.

The allegations have drawn the winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize into a widening corruption scandal rocking politicians across Latin America due to admissions of bribery by Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

Chief prosecutor Nestor Martinez said that the accusation, which Santos denies, has not been corroborated and is based solely on the testimony of Otto Bula, who has been jailed for allegedly channeling bribes on behalf of the Brazilian firm. Martinez, formerly a top aide to Santos, said that he alerted electoral authorities so they could investigate whether almost $1 million ended up in Santos’ 2014 re-election campaign.

“Right now, Bula’s sworn testimony is the only proof that $1 million entered Santos’ campaign,” Martinez said in a press conference in which he was hounded by journalists seeking more details about the accusation. “He’s given information the way, place and time the money was delivered.”

Just being associated with Odebrecht, which has admitted to paying $800 million in bribes across Latin America, is a major blow for Santos. His biggest political asset has been an internationally hailed reputation for rectitude that contrasts with the shady dealings of many of his rivals.

Santos had yet to comment, but his former campaign manager called any claim of a tie to Odebrecht unfounded and libelous.

When Odebrecht agreed in December to pay a $3.5 billion fine in the U.S. as part of a plea agreement, authorities in Colombia were the first outside Brazil to arrest former officials accused of taking bribes.

“So far no official from my government has been accused of taking bribes from Odebrecht, but if that should occur I want the entire weight of the law to fall on them,” Santos said last month.

Among those jailed was Bula, a little-known rancher who was a regional political ally of the senator cousin of former President Alvaro Uribe, Santos’ chief opponent. According to the plea agreement, officials in Uribe’s government received the bulk of $11 million that Odebrecht admitted to paying in bribes in Colombia between 2009 and 2014.

According to Martinez, Bula lobbied on behalf of Odebrecht and helped channel $4.6 million to still unknown recipients after the company was awarded a major highway contract. Most of the money went through companies in Panama and China, but two transfers to Colombia of almost $1 million total purportedly ended up in the management of Santos’ campaign, Martinez said.

Santos’ aides quickly repeat their assertion that Santos took no private contributions, from individuals or companies, during his 2014 campaign in which he narrowly defeated Uribe’s former finance minister.

Transparency Secretary Camilo Encisco said Santos welcomed an investigation to remove any doubt about his probity.

“It’s the word of a criminal, who is looking for legal benefits at any cost, against the word of a campaign manager,” Enciso said. “We’re certain that these investigations will reveal such affirmations to be false as has occurred on previous occasions.”
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