Developing countries, such as Namibia, need to bridge the existing infrastructure gap to improve the country's comparative advantage, economic growth and competitiveness, quality of life and the welfare of its citizens. As traditional sources of finance dwindle, Pension Fund savings need to be pooled to complement traditional sources of funding, such as government budgetary allocations, borrowing and user fees. Although infrastructure's economic and financial characteristics are a match to Pension Fund liabilities, Namibia's Pension Fund investment in infrastructure lags behind world-class benchmarks. This study investigated the factors that hinder Pension Fund investment in infrastructure in Namibia. The study employed a mixed-method research method and convergent parallel data collection processes. The study obtained a representative sample to participate in the survey from a population of NAMFISA registered Pension Fund and investment managers using a combination of the stratified random and simple random sampling techniques as part of primary data collection. The financial characteristics that make infrastructure assets attractive such as; long term, low sensitivity to economic swings, a low correlation with other assets and long term and inflation hedged returns makes them suitable for Pension Fund investments. The study confirms findings of previous studies by Beeferman, (2008); Ehlers, (2014); Inderst & Della Croce, (2013); Sy, (2017) and Thierie & Moor (2016), amongst others, revealed factors such as; a lack of a project pipeline, a lack of expertise by Pension Funds in infrastructure investments, Pension Fund regulation and a lack of financial instruments and assets that match Pension Funds are barriers to Pension Fund investment in infrastructure. The lack of a project pipeline is further attributable to issues such as infrastructure projects that are not sufficiently developed or viable on their own without some form of government support, inefficiencies in public procurement and public-private partnership policies and a lack of project preparation funding. The study recommends the following initiatives by policymakers and key stakeholders towards increasing Pension Fund investment in infrastructure: firstly, government and state-owned institutions responsible for public services should implement policies that will increase the pipeline of bankable and implementable projects. The National Development Plans (NDP5), the Harambee Prosperity plans and the Vision 2030 already identify projects; however, institutionstasked with infrastructure development need to develop implementation modelsthat are viable and bankable. The development plans need to be coordinated across the various levels iii of government and state-owned enterprises for effective implementation. Secondly, it is recommended that policymakers create the necessary conditions for Public Procurement and Public Private Partnership Policies to gain confidence amongst investors. Rooting out corruption and ensuring processes are transparent and fair to all stakeholders can have the effect of creating investor confidence in the two policies. The financial institutions, especially with a developmental angle, should support the public institutions with project preparation funding and technical assistance during project planning/development. Thirdly, the government, through the regulators, NAMFISA, are advised to continue with the implementation of policies aimed at increasing the limit on assets held with unlisted investment managers to allow increased Pension Fund investment in infrastructure without compromising the performance (return) and risk exposure. The financial regulators, NAMFISA and the Bank of Namibia should encourage the growth of the local financial sector to increase the quality and quantity of financial instruments available to investors and increase the depth of the financial sector to absorb local funding capacity. Lastly, the government is recommended to explore the options of partial listing infrastructure SOEs,such as NamPower, NamWater, Road Fund Administrator (RFA), NamPort, TransNamib, among others, to facilitate Pension Fund investment into infrastructure and reduce transaction cost and risks. The study identifies the need for future research opportunities with the aim of understanding issues that affect the project pipeline in the Namibian context in greater detail.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/32809 |
| Date | 10 February 2021 |
| Creators | Mingeli, Benedictus |
| Contributors | Alhassan, Abdul Latif |
| Publisher | Faculty of Commerce, Graduate School of Business (GSB) |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MBA |
| Format | application/pdf |
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