Masters Degrees (School of Accountancy)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (School of Accountancy) by browse.metadata.advisor "Ross, Anthony"

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    Investigating Sino-Africa relations : exploring investment and governance regimes in the Sino-Ugandan oil relations
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Swilling, Ranen Annecke; Ross, Anthony; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY : China’s influence and involvement in Africa has grown significantly over the past two decades. This study discusses a core element to this engagement, which is whether or not Africa is benefitting from this relationship. However, the China-Africa literature terrain has until recently, been characterised by the glaring absence of an approach that actively comprehends Africa’s agency and capability. Instead, there are many more accounts of Africa being the victim to predatory external powers such as the Chinese. Almost in response to this, there has been a dawning realisation that the Sino-Africa relations are evolving, bringing the emergence of rhetoric’s such as the notion that African countries are taking a more assertive role when engaging with investment and governance deals with foreign public and private sectors. The more Afro-Centric narratives that have emerged bring into question what the current governance regime terrain in Africa looks like. Moreover, they have questioned how these regimes are negotiating, whether it’s with their countries’ best interests at heart, and whether they are maintaining an attractive business environment to continue attracting valuable FDI from the private and public sectors of China, as well as from Europe, America and Asia. Through a Transdisciplinary Research approach, this study examined the China-Africa relations and used a case study on the natural resource/oil industry of Uganda as an entry point into further exploring the dynamics between African states and the Chinese private and public sectors. The oil industry was used because East Africa has until recently not stood out on the global energy map, but in light of the changing global oil portfolio and late oil finds in the region, is poised to become one of the world’s most interesting oil and gas hot spots. Furthermore, the Resource Curse that has affected the well-being of many African nation-states poses a threat to the future of countries such as Uganda. The research concludes that the Sino-Ugandan relations are driven by neopatrimonialist, neoliberal, realist and economically nationalist agenda’s which has thus far made for a functional relationship. The research further concludes that China is familiar with neopatrimonialism and utilises this conversant as a competitive advantage in situations such as Uganda’s oil industry. Furthermore, it is concluded that there are negative effects of this kind of engagement between China and Africa, however there has been some exaggeration by the media on this front. The study understands that neopatrimonialism is largely to blame for many of these said negative consequences (corruption, pro-rich agendas, and mal-governance) and the presence of neoliberal ideologies perpetuates this. Yet it is not a culture that will be easily eliminated from Africa’s society, nor its relations with China. Therefore, this study argues that by retaining the markets, but not retaining neoliberal ideologies, by having a strong developmentalist agenda and by having an realist yet economic nationalist guiding theoretical framework, neopatrimonialism can be a useful tool in engaging with Chinese FDI and ultimately, the continents development. This is where the role of Africa’s Agency will play a vital role in assuring that there is a ‘responsible’ practice of neopatrimonialism and that developmentalism is the end goal.