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M.Com. (Development Economics) / The Local Government Equitable Share (LES) is a lump sum unconditional grant that is legally entitled to municipalities in South Africa. The grant aims to supplement municipal own revenues in the delivery of services. However, increases in the LES allocations to municipalities have coincided with increased service delivery protests and poor revenue management on the part of local government. Given these trends and the ultimate goal of the LES, it is important to assess the actual impact this grant is having on local government fiscal decision. This minor dissertation evaluates the impact of the LES on the expenditure and revenue decisions and performance of local government in South Africa. Specifically, the research seeks to ascertain the nature of such impacts in terms of how expenditure and revenue decisions are adjusted with this grant funding and whether such funds may be creating adverse incentives on the part of local governments to spend inefficiently and/or not maximising their effort in collecting own revenues. The analysis uses a cross sectional dataset for a sample of 129 municipalities for the 2009/10 municipal financial year, with the Stochastic Frontier Analysis as the primary methodology. The analysis finds that the LES has no statistically significant impact on municipal operating expenditure. This suggests that the funds from this grant might not have contributed to municipal service outputs in the 2009/10 financial year. Furthermore, the results found that the LES is positively correlated with expenditure inefficiencies and poor tax/revenue effort. This suggests that the LES funds create perverse incentives for local government to waste LES funds and not collect revenues from local taxes. The latter is due to municipalities substituting tax revenues with funds from the LES, hence resulting in the LES not having an impact on overall expenditure.

A research report submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand Faculty of Humanities, School of Arts, in fulfilment of the requirements of a Masters degree in Arts and Culture Management Johannesburg 2015 / The Civil Society sector in South Africa has been experiencing a funding crisis for the past 20 years. The arts represent a small portion of Civil Society, and the visual arts a small part of the art. This research considers how these visual arts non-profit organisations (VANPOs) in this economic microsphere have been challenged to survive and sustain their missions in what is a competitive, fluctuating and complex environment. This study scrutinizes the concept of sustainability and the visual arts non-profit sector’s capacity for implementation of economically sustainable projects in the current economic and funding environment in South Africa. It outlines the complex and challenging nature of sustainability for VANPOs. The VANPOs, all small organisations, have limited human and cash resources to implement sustainability strategies while fulfilling their missions. Furthermore the funding environment focuses on short-term project grants and production-oriented efforts. This does not offer the organisations much opportunity towards long-term organisational development nor strategic resourcefulness. At the same time they struggle to remain compliant with government regulations and donor requirements. This research considers methods of assessing sustainability and the perspectives of professionals involved in the management of VANPOs. It examines the challenges they have faced in finding ways to implement sustainability and in the implementation of ‘sustainable’ projects. The brief case studies focus on how five VANPOs have responded to diminishing funding.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg, 14 December 2016. / The interaction between business and biodiversity has seen growing importance in corporate management; impacting policy, practices and strategy. This study examines South African companies’ assimilation of recommended biodiversity management practices, as communicated through their annual reporting and official websites. A selection of nine South African companies in the forestry, sugar and mining sectors were studied with regards to their reporting on biodiversity management practices. The research aimed to understand the extent of structured approach to biodiversity management, and explore potential sectorial differences. The study found a wide acceptance of the UN Global Compact Principles, the GRI reporting guidelines and the King Code of good governance principles. However, the companies did not demonstrate a consistent governance structure for biodiversity management. The study revealed one mining company with a stronger biodiversity governance structure making the use of various dedicated policies and standards. Furthermore, the study identified few sector specific differences. Though the forestry sector demonstrated good practice with its emphasis on biodiversity in its supply chain management. The study did not reveal a particular uptake of emerging biodiversity concepts such as No Net Loss, payment for ecosystem services or agroforestry, however the companies had adopted several sustainability and governance recommendations and standards. The study did not identify the existence, nor the use, of dedicated biodiversity certification programmes or South African developed cross-sector biodiversity certification programmes. The finance sector is in a good position to positively influence corporate biodiversity management practices. However, the study results give an impression that there is untapped potential in the finance sector to further drive the biodiversity management agenda in South Africa. Keywords: Corporate Biodiversity Management, Biodiversity Management Framework, Biodiversity Best Practices, / LG2017

M.Sc. (Mining Engineering), Faculty of Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, 1995

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Economics