The delivery of low-income housing in Sarah Baartman District from 2012 to 2017
- Authors: Mazondwa, Sivuyile
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Low-income housing -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Public housing -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Housing development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Project management -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Construction industry -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/41537 , vital:36502
- Description: Access to basic housing for the poor is one of the Government’s key focus areas. Housing delivery started to decline in Sarah Baartman, leading to total non-delivery in the local municipalities within the district. This has led to community unrest, in which the national and regional roads will be blocked, due to the demand for houses. The study seeks to find the causes of the situation; since it cannot be an issue to be tackled by the Department of Human Settlements alone. There are certain sector departments or municipalities which ought to have done certain roles or tasks prior to the delivery of houses. The study aimed at establishing the factors that affect the delivery trends of Human Settlements projects between 2012 and 2017. It further sought to suggest possible solutions; to factors that negatively affected the delivery, mainly focusing on the alignment of sector department plans, project planning, procurement and contract administration. The research design followed is a qualitative research; since it sought opinions rather than figures. The study was conducted in the Sarah Baartman District, which covers seven local municipalities as a population. The sampling frame comprised officials that were likely to be involved in housing delivery – from initiation to the close-out of projects. A total of 33 questionnaires were distributed electronically; but only 23 were returned fully completed, thereby representing 69, 8% response rate. The key findings or revelations of the study indicated that there is a disjuncture that exists between the sector departments’ plans and the municipal plans. There is lack of technical oversight during project planning, leading to the unavailability of land and bulk services and a lack of budget. In as much as there are Supply-Chain Management (SCM) committees for procurement, there is an issue of commitment and the availability of members for the sittings of the committees. Contract administration is affected by poor performance monitoring and inexperienced staff. The key recommendations in response to the above challenges are that municipalities need to revisit and rework all the integrated human settlements project plans, together with other sector departments that play a pivotal role in the delivery of human settlements. There is a need for provincial government sector departments and municipalities to interact and have employees with the planning expertise and technical capacity to guide them in the right direction, when conducting strategic and project planning. Supply-Chain Management (SCM) committees should be prioritised by members nominated to serve in them; and members must be accountable; and they need to understand the bigger picture of how the meetings/sittings affect project delivery. A proper procurement plan and procurement schedule should be created and revised quarterly, so that members can align their working schedules to the procurement schedule. Employees must be constantly capacitated and their performance must be constantly monitored; so that there can be some sense of accountability for each and every action taken.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Difficulties experienced by small businesses in accessing finance
- Authors: Kouadio, Gbogbo Nina Marie-Laure
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Economics , Small business
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MTech
- Identifier: vital:9015 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1018633
- Description: Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) significantly contribute to the growth of the economy and the employment sector. However, it is indicated that SMEs lack access to the financial products and services that are critical to their growth. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to investigate the difficulties experienced by small businesses in accessing finance. An online questionnaire survey was considered an appropriate measurement method for this study. The targeted population of the study included all small businesses operating in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropole. Thus, some 208 companies were identified as part of the study sampling frame. A total number of 66 questionnaires were returned out of the 208 targeted companies - giving a response rate of 29 percent. The quantitative data were processed using a STATISTICA program, leading to appropriate descriptive statistical analyses, including frequencies, means, medians and standard deviations. In order to obtain a better understanding of the difficulties experienced by small businesses in accessing finance, hypotheses were also formulated and a t-test was used to establish the statistical significance of certain demographic variables and company characteristics regarding the problems experienced by small businesses in accessing finance. The results of the empirical study revealed that the major difficulties faced by small businesses in their access to finance were the lack of collateral and security, the high cost of borrowing interest and the delay in feedback from the financial institutions. Further, by testing the hypotheses, it was also revealed that the ethnic group of the applicant, the total years of business experience of the applicant and the annual turnover of the business have an impact on the access to finance. Based on the relevant literature study and the empirical results, recommendations were made in order to address the identified problems. However, the unavailability of an exhaustive small business database in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropole did not allow the research to draw on a larger representative sample. Thus, this limitation has impeded in-depth statistical analysis that would have allowed the research to obtain more accurate findings. Further studies could investigate the reasons why in many cases financial institutions reject the funding of small businesses.
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- Date Issued: 2012