South African Police Service (SAPS) is mandated by act no 68 of 1996 to ensure a safe environment for all people living in South Africa. Like any other government department in South Africa, SAPS utilises public funds to perform day to day duties and to provide better service to the community in the form of a secure environment for all people living in this country. South African Police Service is regulated by the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA act 1 of 1999) in utilising the public funds. PFMA act requires that accounting officer be appointed in terms of section 36 (1) of the act and furthermore, requires that the accounting officer should ensure in terms of section 38 (1) (i) that the department has and maintains effective, efficient and transparent systems of financial and risk management and internal control. It also requires in terms of section 38 (1) (iii) that accounting officer ensures and maintains an appropriate procurement and procurement and provisioning system which is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective. According to the reports by the Auditor General in the previous three (3) financial years (2008/2009 - 2009/2010 - 2010/2011) financial management within SAPS has been unsatisfactory. The Auditor General pointed out same problem year on year of fruitless and wasteful expenditure which in many instances are caused by the penalties for not paying license fees in time. These suggested that control and measures were not in place to eradicate the problem . The report of 2008/2009 by the Auditor General revealed that "the accounting officer at SAPS did not ensure that the department has and maintains an effective, efficient and transparent system and internal controls regarding performance management. The information gathered from the study undertaken in SAPS North West from employees working at Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Finance at Potchefstroom, Rustenburg and Mafikeng revealed that finances while managed well, more needs to be done to ensure the effective utilisation of the finances. Fruitless and wasteful expenditure was blamed on management for not following the plan in place and procedures when procuring goods and services. Incompetent employees were also found to be contributing to the rise in fruit less and wasteful expenditures. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

Includes bibliography. / The use of free cash flow has been a source of conflict between shareholders and managers. This conflict derives from the agency relationship between shareholders and managers in that decisions taken by managers (as agents) affect the shareholders (as principals). The decisions of managers may not always be in the interest of shareholders. The interests of shareholders will be served if actions of managers lead to the maximisation of the total value of the company. The free cash flow theory suggests that managers have the tendency to misuse surplus cash resources. Any use of free cash flow that is not value maximising could result in losses to shareholders. These are termed the agency costs of free cash flow. It is believed that managers will think and act as shareholders if they own significant proportions of the equity capital of companies. This dissertation examines the effects of the agency relationship on the utilisation of free cash flow.

This study aims to present an analysis of the literature on the nature and causes of over indebtedness by studying all surveys related to over indebtedness among urban South African households with a focus on consumers in the Western Cape in order to answer the research question "who is most likely to be over indebted and what are the main variables that explain this risk" and how does the debt levels in South Africa compare to that of the UK, USA, Australia and Canada.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70). / Over the last four decades academics have been concerned with both the factors effecting individual unit trust performance and whether this performance persists going forward. Whilst persistence in performance is of interest to unit trust investors from a practical perspective, it is also of interest to academics due to its inherent implications for the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH). This study employs South African data based on a sample of 35 General Equity unit trusts over the six year period 1st January 1998 to 31 st December 2003. This study discusses both the EMH as well as factors that influence unit trust management style and associated performance. Using Jensen's alpha in both a Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) framework and a 2-Factor Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) model, unconditional evidence is presented on the performance of General Equity unit trusts.

This paper investigates whether South African directors are able to earn abnormal returns by trading in their companies' shares. An event study methodology was used based on the Capital Asset Pricing Model for director's trades during the period 2009 to 20 12. The results suggest sales transactions are associated with a greater market reaction than purchases. A better market indication is received from in directly beneficial trades than directly beneficial, specifically for sales. Upon further analysis, we find significantly higher abnormal returns for larger value trades. For purchases, single director trades provide a stronger market reaction than multiple director trades. In contrast, sales transactions provide a stronger signal when they are from multiple directors than single directors

This study examines whether there is herding by general equity unit trusts as investors in the consumer services sector in South Africa. It also investigates whether herding was more prevalent during the financial crisis period in South Africa between 2008 and 2010, than during a non-crisis period. Using a herding measure developed by Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1992) (LSV), it was found that there was indeed herding behaviour by general equity unit trusts in the consumer services sector. A herding rate (i.e. the proportion of trades by general equity unit trusts in the consumer services sector in excess of the expected random and independent proportion) of 7.75% is calculated. Possible reasons for herding in the consumer services sector include; consumer services companies being profitable investments and a small number of investment analysts in South Africa. It was also observed that herding behaviour was not more prevalent during the financial crisis period (12.14%) than the non-crisis period (6.36%), as these two periods were not statistically different from one another, even though the average herding rates differed.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-67). / Includes abstract. / The focus of this paper will be on Zimbabwe’s particular hyperinflationary episode. The crisis has its roots in Zimbabwe's struggle for independence, which took place in the 1970s. This struggle, known as the Second Chimurengo, culminated in Zimbabwe’s declaration of Independence on April 18, 1980. The incumbent President Mugabe has repeatedly referred to the current period of Zimbabwe’s history as the Third Chimurenga: the final stage in Zimbabwe's battle against those he terms the "neo-colonialists" (Raftopoulos, 2009). Given all the hyperinflations of the past, the question to be asked is whether the Zimbabwean experience is an isolated economic novelty; or, rather, is it simply a repetition of the economic and political follies that have plagued some of the fiat governments of the modern world? The purpose of this research, then, is to provide a detailed historical account of the economic side of the crisis, documenting the observable causes and phenomena that accompanied it. This account will then form the basis of a historical analysis of the key features that the Zimbabwean episode shares with other past hyperinflations, in an attempt to draw universal conclusions about the emergence and development of such episodes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the limitations, imposed by Regulation 28 of the Pension Funds Act, encourage optimal asset allocation and reduce investment risk for retirement savings when contrasted to discretionary investment. A quantitative risk and return analysis was performed using available data for Regulation 28 compliant funds and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange indices. The analysis considers two hypothetical investors who are identical in all regards other than their choice of investments. The model used a 40 year working and saving horizon, whereby the investors contribute a portion of their income to a retirement savings vehicle of their choice. The savings in these vehicles accumulate and earn real returns until retirement. The analysis uses a life-cycle model (Modigliani & Brumberg,1954) which accumulates capital to the retirement date and retirement withdrawals that result in zero capital at the date of death, which is assumed to be 20 years postretirement. The model is used to analyse the differential return required in order to make investors indifferent between investing in a regulated product which is incentivised through tax credits. The findings indicate that Regulation 28 is effective in reducing the investment risk of retirement savings, however may also force the investor to sacrifice wealth. Discretionary investment may be preferential to an investor depending on the tax bracket the investor is in. Further, the complex calculations required to smooth consumption over the life cycle may contain too many variables for the ordinary individual to compute. This study is limited by assumptions regarding changes in future tax legislation, the time frame of investment returns for discretionary investment and retirement funds, inflation, investor career length and life expectancy.

Includes bibliographical references. / This study examines whether the Piotroski F_Score (2000) investment strategy framework is able to be replicated within the South African context. Prior work by Atwood (2012) concluded that whilst a High F_Score portfolio was able to outperform a Low F_Score portfolio, it was however not statistically significant over the selected period. This study expands prior research and provides empirical evidence that a modified High F_Score investment strategy is able to outperform both the market and a Low F_Score portfolio over the medium and long-term. These results suggest that it is possible to use accounting-based information to construct a portfolio which is able to shift an investor's distribution of returns, and thereby generating positive abnormal returns within the South African context.

In April 2012, South Africa changed its tax system on dividends. South Africa switched from using Secondary Tax on Companies (STC) to Dividend Withholding Tax (DWT) in an effort to align with the international standards and eliminate the perception of a higher tax rate. This paper attempts to establish the role of taxes in determining the ex-dividend day share price movements by comparing the pre-tax change and post-tax change in price drop ratio (PDR). In this study, I compare the mean and median PDR before and after the April 2012 Act using a t-test and Wilcoxon Mann Whitney test respectively. Furthermore, this study employs a fixed effects regression model to analyse the PDR change on the ex-dividend day before and after the April 2012 Act. The advantage of using a fixed effects model is that it controls for omitted time-invariant predictors so that the model is not biased because of omitted characteristics. I find a significant difference in the mean and median PDR before and after the tax change. Furthermore, I find that ex-dividend prices vary systematically with taxes as predicted by Elton & Gruber (1970:68) hence supporting the tax-based explanation for ex-dividend day prices. This research is particularly interesting because this is the first tax clientele study in South Africa and the 2012 Act provides a natural experiment where the tax effect can be isolated more effectively compared with other studies that have been done before. Furthermore, this research spans over a narrow time frame thereby reducing the effect of other factors that may also drive ex-dividend day prices.