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eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

Volume 37, Issue 1, 2013

Articles

Defining Opposition: An Interview with Afonso Dhlakama of RENAMO

Afonso Dhlakama has run in all four multiparty presidential elections in Mozambique. Before that, he led a guerrilla resistance known as RENAMO in a brutal civil war. He is a household name in Mozambique, and he represents over 30 years of opposition to the ruling party of FRELIMO. This transcript is from an interview conducted with Mr. Dhlakama immediately following the 2009 elections. Much of the focus on Mozambican democracy has been on the electoral and economic success of FRELIMO. Nevertheless, RENAMO has played an integral role as the opposition. The future of this role is uncertain, and Mr. Dhlakama and RENAMO are at their weakest point since the civil war ended in 1992. This interview was conducted as part of the African Democracy Project series at Wayne State University.

An Overview of Accountability Mechanisms in Public - Private Partnerships in South Africa

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are generally envisaged by countries around the world  as major innovative policy tools that will remedying the lack of dynamism in traditional public service delivery by increasing investment in infrastructure as well as improving the delivery of social services. To this end, the South African government since 1999 has adopted the use of PPPs as an integral strategy in its national and international developmental plan. However, with the growing trends in international best practice, noticeable loopholes and omissions have been observed in the existing PPP legal framework resulting in some accountability gaps. Therefore, if the government needs to compliment its developmental aspirations, there is a need to instill the confidence and competitiveness amongst bidders to use PPPs as coherent development-orientated best value tool to deliver services and infrastructures to taxpayers. This paper therefore draws attention to some of the accountability challenges resulting from the PPP legal framework and suggests some techniques that could serve as a platform for the possible review and amendment of core competencies