Public Management

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Browsing Public Management by Author "Niikondo, Andrew"

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    Migrants to cities and towns in Namibia: What their interests are?
    (2010) Niikondo, Andrew
    This study suggests an investigation on the problem of urbanisation and shack dwelling in Namibia. A case of the City of Windhoek has been used. Findings in most literature led to unemployment as a major cause of urbanisation in Namibia. This study has probed the migrants’ (men and women) interest in urban life. The research question is: Do the rural-urban migrants feel like citizens of the city or town? The study pursues the main objective of investigating the relationship between personal interests and housing demands of rural-urban migrants in the City of Windhoek. It was hypothesised that immigrants to the City of Windhoek feel like transient residents rather than citizens, and as a consequence take no responsibility for their surroundings including buying formal houses. These phenomena could be the causes of various social problems such as shack-dwelling, crime and insanitation in Namibia’s urban areas.
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    Perceptions on the impact of Chinese businesses in Namibia: A case study of the retail and construction sector in Windhoek.
    (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2009) Niikondo, Andrew; Coetzee, Johan
    There are conflicting perspectives on the increase of Chinese business in Africa and in particular in Namibia. This study hypothesized that in Namibia, local communities, political leaders, local business community and workers operate on distinct repertoires, i.e. local communities tend to regard Chinese traders as a most welcomed addition to the local market as providers of affordable goods and services. Government, which is a signatory of various bilateral agreements with the People's Republic of China, believes in economic liberalisation and attraction of foreign investment. The local business community on the other hand, feels the pinch of market threat by the influx of Chinese businesses in particular in the construction and the retail sector. There are claims of unfair competition by Chinese businesses, in particular with regard to state tenders. According to this view, Chinese businesses do not have to adhere to the same costly legal provisions as local or South African companies have to, due to political favouritism and alleged corruption benefiting the Chinese. Organised labour (trade unions) seems to be concerned by the frequent non-adherence of Chinese businesses to Namibian labour law and affirmative action legislation. There is also evidence that Chinese companies bring along their own low-skilled labour from China, thereby taking away work from Namibians. Namibian employees of Chinese companies are expected to compare their situation in terms of pay, working conditions (working hours, annual and compassionate leave, management style etc.), fringe benefits (medical aid, pensions) to their counterparts in other (Namibian and foreign) companies. The principal questions to which this study tries to find an answer are: (a) What are the characteristics and the consequences (positive and negative, short-term and long-term) of Chinese economic activity in Namibia's commercial and construction sector in particular? (b) What has been the local response to the increased Chinese presence? (c) What are the policy suggestions in order to, on the one hand, maximise the benefits to Namibia and, on the other hand, minimise the costs and negative impacts of the Chinese expansion into the Namibian society?
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    Regional integration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC): A case study of Namibia's cross border migration issues in Oshikanga.
    (2007) Niikondo, Andrew
    The article is directly the product of research performed as part of the PhD dissertation on Politics and Public Management offered by the Department of Political and Administrative Studies of the University of Namibia. The main objective of this article was to investigate issues of cross-border migration and their effects on the project of the SADC regional integration. A case study of the border area around the Oshikango town at the Namibia/Angola border has yielded the empirical data. The data were gathered about the distribution of variables such as grassroots community’s understanding and attitudes towards implications of cross border migration as measured against the SADC project of regional integration. Other important variables that support investigation techniques are gender, age and education level of respondents. Informed by this investigation and based on the Oshikango case study this article has arrived at the conclusion that SADC is currently unable to achieve its goal of regulating free movement of persons in the region. The problematic seems to be that since SADC is state-based regime, member states take their refuge in the doctrine of state sovereignty, often at the expense of the common regional agenda, in other words they talk regionalism, but they act nationally. This characterised SADC as a shallow integration with limited involvement of civil society and local communities, and hence, cross-border migration control in the region became an issue. Induced by these conclusions, this article recommended encouragement of trans-frontier special development arrangements such as parks and corridors deeply integrated in trans-boundary grassroots communities.