This research analyses the current policy and regulatory framework in South Africa to establish whether or not it is effective and responsive in promoting financial inclusion and facilitating access to basic bank accounts for the poor and the low-income households. The research takes a “back to basics” approach and focuses on access to basic bank accounts as the simplist form of financial service provided by banks and a gateway to other financial services. The main objective of the study is to determine whether the regulatory framework in South Africa that applies to commercial banks as deposit-taking institutions imposes obligations on them to provide access to basic bank accounts for consumers. The study applies Ayres and Braithwaite’s theory of responsive regulation and the pyramid of regulatory strategies to determine the type of regulatory instruments that may be applied to promote financial inclusion and access to basic bank accounts, and whether the current regulatory framework in South Africa should be redeveloped and improved to make it more effective and responsive to achieving this objective. The study uses existing regulatory frameworks for financial inclusion and access to basic bank accounts adopted by global standard-setting bodies, continental bodies, national legislatures, and associations of banks to benchmark the forms of regulatory responses and to determine whether these responses are responsive and effective in promoting financial inclusion generally, and access to basic bank accounts in particular. It further discusses the role that various regulatory bodies play through mutual collaboration and coordination to enforce and promote compliance with measures that promote financial inclusion and access to basic bank accounts. This research makes a number of findings and identifies gaps in the current policy and regulatory framework in South Africa. It, therefore, makes specific recommendations for improving and developing policy and regulatory measures to promote financial inclusion with a specific focus on access to basic bank accounts.

In 2014 in the case of Telecel Zimbabwe(Private) Limited v Attorney-General of Zimbabwe the Prosecutor-General of Zimbabwe challenged the issuing of private prosecution certificates to private parties on the basis that they were unlawful and grossly irrational. The Prosecutor-General argued that private prosecutions would interfere with the authority and independence of the Prosecutor-General to prosecute criminal matters on behalf of the state. However, the establishment of an independent prosecuting authority is an important or special feature of the Zimbabwean Constitution.

This research examines the principle of belonging as a fundamental basis of existence as a human being. It seeks to show that non-recognition as a national of any country has led to many people being stateless and living with no form of identity or legal status. Being stateless means being invisible and is defined as not being considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law. In light of the above, this thesis critically analyses two jurisdictions, Kenya and Myanmar, with the aim of seeking better practices that South Africa can emulate. It contends that, while South Africa has an obligation to protect the rights of everyone, including those of stateless people, it fails to protect stateless persons as it does not legally recognise them. As a result, reliance is placed on different sources to argue that there is a need for the formation of a statelessness determination procedure to identify and recognise stateless people. If the identity of stateless and undocumented people is not legally recognised, it means that they will not have access to fundamental human rights. Most countries have laws that promote equality and non-discrimination, however, they lack laws that protect the stateless community. It is suggested that the lack of laws regulating statelessness and a statelessness determination procedure means that South Africa is non-compliant with international law that protects stateless people. In addition, this research suggests that South African law should be aligned with international instruments that call for protection of individuals from becoming stateless and also prevent the crisis from becoming worse.This flows from the understanding that with no law in South Africa that recognises and identifies stateless people, it means that it is impossible for a country to protect a community it does not recognise. Finally, the thesis recommends that South Africa enacts laws that recognise stateless people and make provision for the procedures to be followed in order for them to have a legal status. Furthermore, South Africa can amend and make changes in the policies, laws and the administration dealing with statelessness in order to prevent it.

Botswana has a peculiar legal system. It is a former British protectorate, yet the British never introduced their own laws into the country. Instead Botswana was made to apply the law of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Notwithstanding this development, that law indirectly incorporated English law, and this made the applicable law a hybrid of English law and Roman-Dutch law. This simultaneous application of two legal systems still causes a few problems of ascertainment of the law, especially in administrative law, and in particular in the process of judicial review. Judicial review is generally recognised as a remedy against wrongful decisions of authorities or bodies that exercise public powers or functions. These are bodies that were described compendiously as public bodies. This excluded private bodies from the ambit of judicial review as they were said not to exercise public powers. This resulted in injustice in many circumstances. The scope of judicial review had to expand. This thesis sets out to establish how this expansion occurred. It is a survey of the law governing the process of judicial review of acts and decisions of private bodies. It does so in a comparative manner, by focusing principally on two jurisdictions, Botswana and England. It looks at the manner in which this extension came about and the principles that underpinned the expansion of the scope for review. This reviewability of decisions of private bodies is central to this thesis. The thesis establishes that in both jurisdictions there has been some extension of the process of judicial review to decisions of private bodies. However, in both jurisdictions there is evidence of some resistance to the expansion of the scope of judicial review. The position in both jurisdictions remains in a state of flux, requiring settlement by the highest courts.

Fundamental reform of the current system of access to land in Nigeria is imperative to ensure a process of land administration that is simple, accessible and sufficiently comprehensive to redress the impact of colonisation on the land tenure system that operates at present. Focus must be placed on the local government as well as the respective state in Nigeria because all the powers to confer access to land by individuals are concentrated in their hands. The Land Use Act of 1978 held the promise of bringing the much-needed reform. However, the status quo remains that the acquisition of a right of occupancy and a customary right of occupancy are the only title that is able to be held over land in Nigeria. This system has also been fraught with abuse, which is an issue that the Nigerian judiciary have repeatedly had to pronounce on. In this thesis, the historical evolution of registration of title to land and the effect of non-registration open up a new chapter in the quest for proper administration and access to land in the entire country. The entire system is held hostage by the requirement of obtaining consent from the Governor and the further impact of the family or village head serving as the trustee of the land, thus obstructing transactions on land involving transfer of interest in such land. Unfortunately, this results in economic prejudice to individuals and the country alike. For this reason, implementable solutions and recommendations as to how land reform could be enhanced in Nigeria are advanced.

This thesis evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the legal framework on corporate rescue in South Africa and Uganda. Although corporate rescue was initially not one of the objectives of insolvency law, it has now become the focus of modern insolvency law. South Africa became the first country to recognise the need to create a legal framework for rehabilitating financially distressed companies when it incorporated judicial management in the Companies Act of 1926. Judicial management was, however, not successful as a corporate rescue procedure. The South African policy makers however continued to explore ways through which financially distressed but viable companies could be saved from collapsing. This culminated into the introduction of business rescue in Chapter 6 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008. The study presents a detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the South African business rescue framework. It posits that unlike the Ugandan system, the South Africa legal regime reflects the principles of a modern and effective corporate rescue system. Whereas the government of Uganda attempted to embrace corporate rescue through the introduction of administration in the Insolvency Act 2011, the law is devoid of the internationally recognised features of a modern and effective business rescue framework. Administration has remained a white elephant in Uganda’s insolvency system, with liquidation continuing to be the predominant procedure used by both creditors and financially distressed companies. It is recommended that Uganda’s policy makers should benchmark the South African system to reform Uganda’s corporate rescue framework. This thesis is based on the law as at 31st of May 2022, found in the sources available in South Africa and Uganda.

This study explores several South African cyber laws by comparing them to international precepts of the UK and the US, and determines how they impact on extraditions. The extradition process is largely governed by the dual criminality principle and compliance with the international obligations before a person can be extradited, irrespective of the existence of a treaty. South Africa has acceded to some conventions, but not with others, which decelerates the process of achieving global harmonisation in e-crime. The constant evolvement and capricious nature of cyber infractions may impede the securing of critical data expeditiously due to lack of adroitness and proficiency in law enforcement agencies. The Cybercrimes Bill recently signed into law, on 26 May 202, has been hailed, but criticism renders the pragmatic effect disappointing in the curtailment of online freedom and the perilous criminalisation of false communication. Online crime scenes are not territorially bound and control over cyberspace may be problematic in the absence of global harnessing of cybercrime for an extradition to be workable.

Empowerment of women is important as it enables establish more stable societies, as women participate in economic activity and the development process. Commercial banks play an important role in empowerment by encouraging savings and enabling access to credit. The present paper assesses the role of commercial banks in women empowerment. Primary data was collected from Rukungiri District in Western Uganda. The indicators used for empowerment are earnings per month, having bought something worth UGX 100,000 and leadership status. The findings show that having an active commercial bank account and having a commercial bank loan is positively associated with higher average earnings per month, Having an active commercial bank account is positively associated with the respondent’s status of having bought something worth UGX 100,000 and Having an active commercial bank account is positively related to being a leader.

The study set out to investigate the determinants of export volumes of Uganda‟s coffee in an export supply framework. The hypotheses tested were that; an appreciation of real exchange rate and an increase in real interest rate reduce coffee export volume and an increase in international coffee prices, gross domestic product, and gross capital formation increase coffee export volume. The study applied cointegration technique and error correction modeling to Ugandan quarterly data starting from 1991:1 to 2007:4. The results indicate the existence of long-run relationships. The econometric results show that the real effective exchange rate is negatively correlated with coffee export volumes with elasticity of -2.164. The international coffee price has a positive and statistically significant effect on coffee export volumes with price elasticity of 0.789. However, real interest rate, gross domestic product and gross capital formation have statistically insignificant effects in the short-run. From the results, it is concluded that an increase in international coffee price and gross domestic product increase coffee export volumes while real effective exchange rate depreciation and increase in real interest rate reduce the coffee export volumes. The study recommends the establishment of agreements with international coffee buyers to increase prices, prevent exchange rate depreciation, expansion in gross domestic product and reduction in interest rate on loans to producers and exporters thereby encouraging coffee production and increase in coffee exports.

We provide some empirical evidence of how a poor business environment may incentivise tax evasion. In particular, we examine the roles that specific components of the business environment that include: bribery, efficiency of the legal systems, and the provision of public capital such as adequate provision of electricity, play in determining tax evasion. We exploit industry-location averages for bribes as instruments to deal with the endogeneity concerns. We use IV Tobit estimation procedures and find that the extent of tax evasion is associated with the quality and efficiency of the legal systems, bureaucratic bribery and the inadequate provision of public capital. In addition we find that the business environment as shaped by the various constraints has implications for tax evasion. These results suggest that ameliorating the business environment by reigning in on corruption, strengthening the legal system, as well adequate provision of public capital can encourage tax compliance behaviour among firms.