The strategic financial governance concern of the IMF in releasing the COVID-19 financial relief to countries is that the fund must reach those who need it the most (IMF, 2020). This apprehension draws from the fact that "The scale of the crisis raises the risks and dangers of the theft of public money that should be used to save lives and rebuild livelihoods" (Transparency International, 2020). Given the huge sums of funds involved with the COVID-19 crisis and lives at stake, the I ...

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2021-Jun-28 15:00:05

The premise of the incremental housing approach is that low-income households can, and have, transformed their rudimentary housing into substantial dwellings over time. This possibility legitimises the government's role as one of supporter rather than provider of housing, and initially underpinned South African post-apartheid housing policy. Yet, in both housing implementation and political messaging, the government's current housing role, while unclear and prevaricating, is strongly ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:55:58

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic confronted politicians and public servants in South Africa with unprecedented challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only laid bare the inequalities within South African society but sadly, it has also portrayed how successive South African public sectors have failed to deal with corruption which has become entrenched within every sector of society. Nonetheless, while the government was preoccupied with the interventions for reducing the spread of COVID-19, so ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:53:24

Lockdowns have been adopted widely by different countries to contain the spread of COVID-19 and reduce pressure on health systems. When Malawi announced a 21-day lockdown, the public protested, and a court injunction stopped the lockdown. Why were Malawians protesting to measures aimed at keeping them safe from the pandemic? The purpose of this article is to describe how the fear of economic impacts of COVID- 19 resulted in the public protesting the lockdown. Using the results from public opi ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:50:46

This article presents an analysis of overpricing of PPE acquired by government during the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis is of high importance given that the pandemic is still active with sporadic resurgences, hence there is dire need for corrective actions. The methodological approach is a mix of qualitative analysis of causes of overpricing combined with a brief quantitative examination of the actual extent of PPE price differential from the official National Treasury prices. Data was gat ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:48:24

Drawing on David Skarbek's analysis on the informal versus formal modes of governing, this article looks at how a country with limited resources South Africa could be innovative in fighting a pandemic which has claimed over 2 million lives across the world. I approach the analysis through the lens of the realities faced by prison gangs and how they organise themselves. The informal organisation of prison gangs is vastly distinct from the hard lockdowns instituted by several governments wo ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:42:54

The purpose of this article is to explore the innovative strategies used by universities in South Africa to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. The article examines the role of university leadership, student leadership and academics in developing innovative strategies to reduce the effects of COVID-19. A literature survey was the method used to gather information. Inductive reasoning based on theoretical paradigms was used to generate and critique information gleaned from various academic sourc ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:40:11

Democratic societies are often confronted by unprecedented, and unethical conduct that circumvents the essence of democratic processes. This conduct plagues service delivery and as a mechanism for combating corruption, whistleblowing remains important. A key obstacle in the fight against corruption is individual's fear of speaking out or blowing the whistle because of the porous legal protection that exists for them in South Africa. The public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:37:39

This article explores current issue pertaining to the 2020 global health and economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic which necessitated that the World Health Organisations agitate for relevant actions to be taken by national governments globally to fend for the health provisions of their citizenry. The burden of the state during this period had not only been limited to health provisions such as the personal protective equipment (PPEs) but included the escalation in the provision of ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:35:00

Corruption during the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the headlines almost daily, without any real effort to research and analyse the dynamics, the structural and functional roots and the foundation of financial challenges against the South African people, especially the poor and marginalised. This empirical research study explores and analyses the realities that are central to understanding the challenges of the COVID-19 supply chain and procurement processes. The article further assesses the proc ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:32:28

This article presents an analysis of the COVID-19 impact on national budget with implications for beyond COVID-19. The main aim of the article is to unravel the extent to which budget revision in the face of COVID-19 diverges from the budget revision in the year before COVID-19. The article applies a quantitative approach with data drawn from the 2020 revised budget. Using the statistical t-test for difference in means, the results show that the revised budget was positively and significantly ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:30:02

Conditions of service in the public sector are imperative for a strategic human resource function in public institutions (Grobler, 2016:63). In the practice of public administration, the service conditions are in the form of laws, regulations, employment contracts and service benefits (Van der Westhuizen, 2016:9). From the perspective of a Public Administration discipline, the service conditions are underpinned by the scientific management theories of the early 20th century and subsequent pub ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:27:38

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic ushered unprecedented and abrupt changes into the traditional government operations. This has necessitated innovative government functions, policies and processes during and post the COVID-19 period to maintain public service delivery. Accordingly, the unmitigated spread of COVID-19 brought enormous costs for public resources. COVID-19 brought a litmus test of public sector disaster management's efficiency in various dimensions, which affect inter ali ...

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2021-Jun-28 14:24:57