African Customs Research Articles

An Explorative Study Into the Effectiveness of a Customs Operation and Its Impact on Trade

There is a lack of overall efficiency in Sub-Saharan Africa’s logistics systems, with a large contributor to this problem being inefficient customs processes and unnecessary customs delays. Many comparisons have been drawn between the levels of efficiency of different countries and regions, especially in recent trade facilitation research, and some models have been developed to demonstrate how the efficiency of a customs operation can potentially be improved. The development of effective policies, strategies and operational procedures, supported by business intelligence and predictive models, however, depends on an in-depth understanding of the reasons for long delays in the customs process. There are multiple factors impacting the customs and logistics process; in order to progress towards improved solutions it is essential to identify the areas of worst performance, their common denominators and the underlying causes that contribute to low observed performance. This requires exploratory analysis of a large set of data representative of an overall customs operation. This article describes the first attempt to analyse transaction-level data and derive exploratory statistics representative of customs operations as implemented in South Africa. The most important process outcomes from the perspective of both trade and customs are defined, the key input factors are identified, and performance measures are extracted from data exchanged between the customs authority and cargo consignors during the period September 2014 to September 2016. The time duration per category for the completion of the customs process was measured, as well as the effectiveness of the customs authority in screening consignments for inspection. The study indicates that, for the selected dataset, of all shipments delayed by customs, more than 90 per cent were delayed unnecessarily, indicating inefficient risk identification in the South African customs process. This study highlights the need for improved customs processes in the southern African context to ensure more efficient trade.

Spiritual Journey and Primordial Self: Requisite Actions for Individual and National Identity in Christopher Okigbo’s Poetry

Abstract European nations colonized most of the African societies and as a result had political and economic power and control over these nations. With the western domination, the colonists ruled the African nations and every other person was to obey their command. The colonizers introduced hegemonic educational system to Africans in which they were taught the European ethos without their studying African culture. Due to this hegemony, the European colonial masters imposed their culture on Africans and it succeeded in reshaping the cultural and political lives of Africans. Many Africans abandoned African customs and beliefs when they gained western education. Therefore due to this hegemony Africans lost their authentic/real selves and became adulterated. Their main concern becomes to create and recreate themselves through going back to their culture and origin. Through poststructuralist analysis of ‘Heavensgate’ and ‘Path Thunder’ in Labyrinths (1971), this paper explores how Christopher Okigbo, an African poet, embarked on a spiritual journey in quest of his primordial self and became an asserted poet. The paper aims at imploring Africans all over the world to follow the footprints of Okigbo in identifying their true selves for them to have meaningful lives.

Foreign policy in post-apartheid South Africa: security, diplomacy and trade

This is a timely book on an important subject. South Africa is one of the three giants of the African continent—along with Nigeria and Egypt—and since the end of apartheid it has been finding a new voice and a new role in the world. This excellently edited collection of authoritative chapters by scholars and practitioners provides a comprehensive study of the issue. The book analyses South African foreign policy in a series of ‘concentric circles’. Initially Adekeye Adebajo and Kudrat Virk look at the domestic drivers and policy themes, including peacemaking, defence, human rights, and economic and commercial interests. Widening the circle, the book turns to describing South Africa's key bilateral relations within Africa, with a chapter on each main region, including the Great Lakes. Next the edited volume moves from looking at bilateral to multilateral relations in Africa with the African Union (AU), the Southern African Development Community and the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) all examined extensively. Moving beyond the African continent, the focus shifts to South Africa's key bilateral relations with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and China. The final part of the book assesses South Africa's relations with global multilateral organizations—such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries—as well as looking at the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Adebajo's introduction and Virk's conclusion provide perceptive overviews that knit the themes together.

Migration to the “First Large Suburban Ghetto” in America

In this article, I argue that Korean immigrant merchants were active agents who opened small businesses in South Central Los Angeles in order to overcome a range of disadvantages faced in American society. From a structural point of view, Korean immigrant merchants constituted a middleman minority group that played the dual role of “oppressed and oppressor” in the suburban ghetto. Although these merchants made efforts to maintain civil relations with their African American customers, they were often treated with hostile attitudes largely because of the exploitative relationship that existed between the two groups. However, I maintain that Korean American journalists and scholars have not only misunderstood the identity of the middleman minority as an innocent buffer but have also erroneously estimated that race relations with African Americans in Los Angeles were better than those in other areas of the United States.

Assessing fiscal sustainability in Swaziland

Background: Understanding and assessing fiscal sustainability is essential in ensuring financial and macro-economic stability. Fiscal sustainability has emerged as an important subject for Swaziland given the increasingly volatile government revenues especially those coming through the South African Customs Union (SACU), which threw the country into a severe fiscal crisis between 2010 and 2012, as well as the pressures on increased government spending in the post-fiscal crisis era. Aim: This article primarily focuses on studying whether Swaziland’s fiscal policy remains on a sustainable path or whether corrective measures would be required. Setting: Study focuses on Swaziland, a small open economy that is vulnerable to external shocks. The country also relies heavily on South African Customs Union (SACU) revenues. Methods: The study employs a broad approach to assessing fiscal sustainability in Swaziland covering both deterministic and stochastic analysis. On the deterministic analysis, the article studies the evolution of debt given macro-economic variables and further estimates fiscal sustainability indicators such as the primary gap and tax-gap. From a stochastic analysis, the article uses the Trehan and Walsh Methodology as well as Hakkio and Rush Methodology. Results: Fiscal sustainability indicators reflected that the country is on an unsustainable path with a primary gap and tax-gap of about 7% of gross domestic product (GDP) that has to be corrected. The econometric results also portray an evidence of ‘weak-form’ sustainability in the long-run. This is because public expenditures are rising at a faster pace than revenues thereby rendering government deficits unsustainable in the medium term. The econometric results also suggest a tax-spend hypothesis in the long-run, while short-run developments point to a spend-tax hypothesis. In both instances the correction measure is cutting expenditure, mainly recurrent expenditure. Conclusion: The study recommends corrective measures (mainly cuts in government expenditure) for fiscal policy to be brought back into a sustainable path without which a fiscal crisis is imminent. The recommendations are mainly based on the fiscal sustainability indicators as they are more forward looking for the short to medium term. The article suggests fiscal rules based on these indicators.

African Regional Trade Agreements and Intra-African Trade

This paper investigates regional trade agreements in Africa by using panel data spanning 1995~2014. Trade creation and diversion effects are assessed through a gravity model estimated using the Eicker-White robust covariance Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood method. This method proves superior to the usual nonlinear least square estimators, especially against heteroscedasticity and data with zero value. The findings suggest that regional trade agreements may enhance trade. The differences in effects can be matched with the effectiveness in implementation by respective member countries. The trade gains of regional trade agreements do not come at the expense of trade with non-members. By controlling for the duration within a regional trade agreement, we also show that a very small but significant share of the benefits occurs over time in the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, Southern African Development Community, Southern African Customs Union, and West African Economic and Monetary Union. Trade benefits seem to decline over time in the East African Community.

Demand for Education in the Five Countries of the South African Customs Union – Projections and Implications

Demand for education rises with the level of economic development and over time. Censuses and surveys provide an approximation of realized demand for education for different birth cohorts over a long time span across countries and grades. Of the five SACU countries, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland, all except Namibia have already achieved school participation rates above 90% up to age 14. However, grade achievement is not equally impressive, due to high repetition. The projections of grade completion reported here incorporate UN Population Division demographic projections and assume that completion rates will asymptotically approach an upper limit. Assuming that repetition will stabilize allows estimation of enrolment. Future enrolment growth will slow due to slower growth of the school-aged population and because enrolment is already high. Demand for new teachers, however, should slow less, as the age structure of the current teaching personnel implies high levels of retirement. Tertiary enrolment will be constrained by the supply of tertiary places. To meet young people’s rising labor market expectations requires strong economic growth and labor absorption, improved education quality, and a focus on teaching appropriate skills. International tests show that education quality is weak in the SACU countries. Providing specialized tertiary and technical training for the four small SACU economies will require collaborative efforts.

Kingdom of Lesotho: 2017 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Kingdom of Lesotho

This 2017 Article IV Consultation highlights that high levels of unemployment, poverty, and inequality persist in Lesotho despite its faster growth compared with regional peers over the last decade. GDP growth is expected to be about 3 percent in FY2017/18, below the average of 4.1 percent for the past decade, and driven by mining and agriculture. Over the next three years, GDP growth is expected to be led by mining and construction related to the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase II. A steep decline in Southern African Customs Union transfers, a major source of government revenue, will result in a fiscal deficit that is likely to exceed 6 percent of GDP for the second year.

Export Promotion Schemes and Export Performance in the East African Community: A Comparative Analysis

This study analyzed the impact of various fiscal incentives (export promotion schemes) in the East African Community on promoting exports in the region. The schemes in place are; the manufacturing under bond scheme, export processing zones and duty remission facility for Kenya; Duty draw back scheme, excise duty relief, export processing zones and VAT exemption scheme for Tanzania; for Uganda it has duty drawback, manufacturing under bond and foreign exchange liberalization schemes. These schemes are stated in the East African Community customs union protocol, 2005. Effectively, this study was to investigate the actual impact of these schemes for each country and carry out a comparison on which ones have performed better than which ones (if actually there is any performance). Using an augmented gravity model, results showed that duty drawback scheme was the most significant export promotion scheme in promoting export volumes in EAC partner states. The results showed that duty drawback scheme boosted the volumes of exports in both Uganda and Tanzania. In Kenya duty remission facility and export processing zones were the most effective export promotion schemes in promoting the volumes of exports. Export processing zones though effective for Kenya, the results showed opposite impact for Tanzania. Manufacturing under bond scheme, though being in existent in Kenya and Uganda for a very long time, was not effective in promoting volumes of exports in both countries according to the study results. Also, Value added tax remission and excise duty relief schemes are not effective in promoting the volumes of exports in Uganda and Tanzania respectively.

Hostel front desk employees’ perception of customers: a comparative analysis based on cultural background

PurposeDespite their popularity among tourists, information about low-cost accommodation is limited. The study aims to focus on hostels as tourist accommodation. The purpose of this paper is to document the perceptions of hostel front-desk employees about customers and examine employees’ perceptions from a cultural perspective. As culture moderates behavior in general, in light of the cultural difference postulate which proposes that guests and hosts who are from similar or proximate cultures are more likely to experience positive service encounter and that encounter between guests and hosts from distant cultures may be more challenging to service providers, the study compares the perceptions of hostel Western front-desk employees with those of Eastern front-desk employees of their customers. Customers are categorized into four groups – Western customers, Eastern, Middle Eastern/Arab and African. Exploratory interviews paved the development of perception items, which were later on used in a questionnaire to serve the study’s purpose. The paper has managerial and theoretical implications and offers suggestions for further research to advance understanding about this neglected tourism environment.Design/methodology/approachPreliminary/exploratory short interviews with hostel employees in London paved the development of perception items, which were later on used in a questionnaire. There are about 190 hostels in the London area. The questionnaire was self-administered and successfully completed by 113 front-desk employees working in London hostels. t-test statistics was used to examine whether the two groups of employees hold different perceptions about their culturally different group of customers.FindingsResults indicate that, generally, differences in perception exist among hostel employees about their customer groups. For example, Western customers are perceived as nicer and more tip-givers than Eastern customers, but they also complain more and are more demanding than their counterparts. Asian customers are perceived to be friendlier, least troublesome and least demanding than the other customer groups. African customers are the least positively perceived. As for Middle Eastern (Arab) customers, they are perceived rather somewhat positively and yet the least favorite. Furthermore, no statistical differences were observed between Western employees and Eastern employees’ perceptions about their customer groups, except that the latter perceives Asian customers to be more troublesome and more complaining.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough researchers have compared Western people’s behaviors and attitudes with those of Eastern people, differences may also exist within cultural groups, especially between East Europeans and West Europeans, between Middle Eastern and North Africans or between Americans and Canadians, despite cultural proximity. Therefore, it is always reasonable to interpret cultural differences studies cautiously.Practical implicationsHostel management is advised not to take cultural proximity/distance between employees and customers for granted and, thus, should not assume that Eastern employees are more likely to provide better service to Eastern customers than Western employees or that Western employees are more likely to do so to Western customers because they are culturally similar or proximate. In an increasingly globalized world and mobile and culturally diverse workforce in the hospitality sector, it becomes necessary to raise employees’ awareness about cultural differences and their probable effects on perceptions. This is especially true for hostels because of their social characteristic.Originality/valueDespite the importance of hostels to the tourism and hospitality industry, not much is known about their customers or their employees. In addition to contributing to employee perception in general, which is also a neglected area of study, this paper used cultural distance/proximity to assess differences in perception between Eastern employees and Western employees about four culturally different groups of hostel customers. In light of the impacts of globalization on consumer behavior, this paper joins other research to challenge the cultural distance postulate in the service encounter context.

Ubuntu and the law in South Africa

The new constitutional dispensation, like the idea of freedom in South Africa, is also not free of scepticism. Many a time when crime and criminal activity are rife, sceptics would lament the absence of ubuntu in society and attribute this absence to what they view as the permissiveness which is said to have been brought about by the Constitution with its entrenched Bill of Rights. 
 Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity and (attempt to) demonstrate the irony that the absence of the values of ubuntu in society that people often lament about and attribute to the existence of the Constitution with its demands for respect for human rights when crime becomes rife, are the very same values that the Constitution in general and the Bill of Rights in particular aim to inculcate in our society. 
 Secondly, against the background of the call for an African renaissance that has now become topical globally, I would like to demonstrate the potential that traditional African values of ubuntu have for influencing the development of a new South African law and jurisprudence. 
 The concept ubuntu, like many African concepts, is not easily definable. In an attempt to define it, the concept has generally been described as a world-view of African societies and a determining factor in the formation of perceptions which influence social conduct. It has also been described as a philosophy of life. 
 Much as South Africa is a multicultural society, indigenous law has not featured in the mainstream of South African jurisprudence. Without a doubt, some aspects or values of ubuntu are universally inherent to South Africa’s multi cultures. 
 The values of ubuntu are therefore an integral part of that value system which had been established by the Interim Constitution. 
 The founding values of the democracy established by this new Constitution arguably coincide with some key values of ubuntu(ism). 
 Ubuntu(-ism), which is central to age-old African custom and tradition however, abounds with values and ideas which have the potential of shaping not only current indigenous law institutions, but South African jurisprudence as a whole. 
 Ubuntu can therefore become central to a new South African jurisprudence and to the revival of sustainable African values as part of the broader process of the African renaissance.

THE DYNAMICS OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION: A SYSTEM DYNAMICS ANALYSIS OF PATHWAYS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF VALUE CHAINS IN THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN CUSTOMS UNION

Despite progress towards improved cooperation within the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), it can be argued that real economic integration is still lacking. Cross-border value chain (VC) development has been proposed as a potential enabler of regional economic integration. This article draws on a systems thinking process to explore the dynamic process of regional economic integration and value chain development. Through an inductive approach, we consider pathways for value chain development using the agro-processing and automotive sectors within SACU as case studies. The outcome of the dynamic hypothesis is to inform a framework for strategic decision-making to support policy action towards developing cross-border value chains in SACU.

Re-Thinking a Structural Model for M-Phone Paying among South African Consumers

Contemporary payment systems have transformed global businesses extensively. Nevertheless, despite its vast prospects, the widespread utilisation of mobile phone technology for payment transactions (m-phone paying) and reproduction of pecuniary structures has only been hemmed in among a small number of markets. The proliferated reliance on mobile payment services has not been witnessed universally, suggesting that even success stories are still ambivalent and as a result, cannot be easily replicated. This paper is intended to address this issue by evaluating the determining factors towards the continued use of m-phone payment services by existing South African customers. The research model was tested using SMART PLS 3, upon examining the antecedents of users’ intentions toward embracing the emerging mobile phone in commercial transactions. A cross-sectional study was performed on a sample of 474 consumers, wherein security and usefulness were validated as having significant and direct effects on consumers’ attitude towards m-phone paying, of which the latter influences future intentions. The relevance of customers’ future intentions towards m-phone paying was established, thereby sanctioning the idea to include the variable as a proxy for actual usage in technology adoption research. This study provides sound reason for cumulative research that seeks to refine novel models of technology acceptance even further. For marketers and m-phone technologists, understanding the key determinants is vital towards the upgrade and implementation of m-phone payment services. In lieu of this, delivering m-phone applications and payment services that achieve high usage, value and consumer laudation will be an inevitable boon.

Re-Thinking a Structural Model for M-Phone Paying among South African Consumers

Contemporary payment systems have transformed global businesses extensively. Nevertheless, despite its vast prospects, the widespread utilisation of mobile phone technology for payment transactions (m-phone paying) and reproduction of pecuniary structures has only been hemmed in among a small number of markets. The proliferated reliance on mobile payment services has not been witnessed universally, suggesting that even success stories are still ambivalent and as a result, cannot be easily replicated. This paper is intended to address this issue by evaluating the determining factors towards the continued use of m-phone payment services by existing South African customers. The research model was tested using SMART PLS 3, upon examining the antecedents of users’ intentions toward embracing the emerging mobile phone in commercial transactions. A cross-sectional study was performed on a sample of 474 consumers, wherein security and usefulness were validated as having significant and direct effects on consumers’ attitude towards m-phone paying, of which the latter influences future intentions. The relevance of customers’ future intentions towards m-phone paying was established, thereby sanctioning the idea to include the variable as a proxy for actual usage in technology adoption research. This study provides sound reason for cumulative research that seeks to refine novel models of technology acceptance even further. For marketers and m-phone technologists, understanding the key determinants is vital towards the upgrade and implementation of m-phone payment services. In lieu of this, delivering m-phone applications and payment services that achieve high usage, value and consumer laudation will be an inevitable boon.

Editorial

The first issue of 2013 contains fifteen contributions dealing with a potpourri of themes. The first contribution is an oratio presented by the retired Dean of the Faculty of Law of the NWU and former editor of PER, Francois Venter, during his exodus in October 2012. He gave his presentation in his mother tongue, Afrikaans, and asks the question if one may assume that being a professor entails belonging to a profession, in other words, an academic profession. The second oratio was a keynote speech delivered by Torsten Stein, the Director of the Institute of European Studies and holder of the chair for European law and European Public Law at Saarland University, Germany. He delivered his speech during November 2012 at the 3rdHuman Rights Indaba on The Role of International Law in Understanding and Applying the Socio-economic Rights in South Africa's Bill of Rights, which was held by the Faculty of Law (NWU, Potchefstroom Campus) in collaboration with the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation. He shared some thoughts about the nature, development and implementation of socio-economic rights within an international and European setting. The next nine articles make up the bulk of this issue. The first one is by Babatunde Fagbayibo, who gives an analytical overview of the common problems affecting supranational attempts in Africa. He argues that Africa's efforts to solidify its unity should be geared towards building on the experiences of past and present experiments at the sub-regional level. Samantha Goosen discusses the very thorny issue of battered women and the elements of self-defence if she has to stand trial for killing her husband. Recent developments in the area of pro bono legal services are the heart of Dave Holness' article. He focuses on legal service delivery for the indigent by attorneys in private practice acting pro bono in civil rather than criminal matters. Henk Kloppers discusses the very topical issue of corporate social responsibility. He gives an overview of the social and ethics committee created in terms of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 as a potential driver of corporate social responsibility. The always newsworthy theme of HIV/AIDS and the question of whether to disclose or not to disclose one's status forms the focal point of Andra le Roux-Kemp's contribution. Chucks Okpaluba gives an overview of South African and Commonwealth decisions dealing with the issue of reasonable and probable cause in the law of malicious prosecution. The never-ending problem of language diversity once again comes to the fore in the article by Loot Pretorius. He asks the question if the recently adopted Use of Official Languages Act 12 of 2012 complies with the normative instructions of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. In his second essay on the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008, Stephan Terblanche deals with a number of procedural issues related to the sentencing of child offenders. The last article, which is by Bonnie Venter, deals with the ethical question of whether the payment of kidney donors could be regarded as constitutionally acceptable or not. In the first of five notes, Nqobizwe Ngema asks if the African custom of theleka (the withholding of a wife by her father or guardian from her husband to coerce him to pay the outstanding lobolo) has an impact on the custody of children in the context of the best interest of the child. The central question Phazha Ngandwe asks is how states can discharge their duties and obligations vis-à-vis their nationals without perpetuating the bottlenecks to and the stigma that attaches to migration and thereby upsetting the international and regional integration objectives of the free movement of people. Mzukisi Njotini's note discusses the adequacy of South Africa's measures designed to protect critical information infrastructures. In the second last note, Anthea Wagener considers the practice of South African motor-vehicle insurers of using gender as a rating variable to classify risks into certain classes, thereby determining insurance premiums, and asks if this practice boils down to unfair discrimination. The final note by Anri Botes deals with the history of labour hire in our neighbouring country, Namibia.
 

The Capabilities Driving Participation in Global Value Chains

Global value chains (GVCs) have altered the nature of global trade and offer significant opportunities for developing countries to expand exports, access technology, and raise productivity. Recent literature has pointed to a range of underlying characteristics that may drive participation in GVCs. Using a modified factor-content methodology, this paper shows that proximity to markets, efficient logistics, and strength of institutions are among the most important capabilities. However, the paper also shows that each sector has a unique mix of capability requirements. The paper applies the methodology to Southern African Customs Union countries, and demonstrates that, by filling gaps in underlying capabilities, these countries could increase participation in certain GVC sectors.

Redrawing the Map of Southern Africa? A Critical Analysis of the Arguments for the Unification of South Africa and Lesotho

ABSTRACTSouth Africa and Lesotho have an unusual bilateral relationship. Lesotho is one of only three enclaves in the world that is completely surrounded by another state, and there is a massive size disparity between the two countries in terms of both population and GDP. This means that Lesotho is in a position of extreme dependence towards its larger neighbour, which has occasionally led to speculation that the two states might, at some point in the future, merge into a single entity. Such speculation is more prevalent in Lesotho, but it has occasionally been raised by South Africans too. However, previous arguments for or against unification have generally not taken into account the full range of political and economic consequences of such a policy. This article first situates the relationship between Lesotho and South Africa within the broader theoretical debate over postcolonial African borders. It then considers the arguments for unification on several levels: in relation to politics, the role of the military, fiscal considerations, and economic policy. The section on politics considers the quality of governance in Lesotho, the political role of its military, and the potential effects of a merger on South African national politics. The section on fiscal considerations compares the level of fiscal support that Lesotho would receive within South Africa to the level that it currently receives as a member of Southern African Customs Union. Finally, the section on economic policy weighs up the value of Lesotho’s ability to make independent economic policy decisions against the drag and inefficiency that occurs as a result of having to move goods and people across the national border with South Africa.

The Voyage of the Slave Ship Hare: A Journey into Captivity from Sierra Leone to South Carolina by Sean M. Kelley

Reviewed by: The Voyage of the Slave Ship Hare: A Journey into Captivity from Sierra Leone to South Carolina by Sean M. Kelley Ousmane K. Power-Greene The Voyage of the Slave Ship Hare: A Journey into Captivity from Sierra Leone to South Carolina. By Sean M. Kelley. ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 290. $30.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-2768-7.) In 1754 the Hare, an American slave-trading vessel, left Newport, Rhode Island, for West Africa in order to purchase and transport Africans to sell in South Carolina's slave markets. Through an examination of this one ship's journey, Sean M. Kelley reconstructs the inner workings of the Atlantic slave trade with scattered sources, such as correspondence between investors Samuel and William Vernon and the ship's captain, Caleb Godfrey, as well as port logs, account books, and a list of instructions. By sifting through these sorts of sources and supplementing them with secondary studies of eighteenth-century Atlantic world history and African history, as well as logbooks of slave traders, Kelley offers a vivid, well-researched portrait of the Atlantic slave trade. Kelley's book joins other works that examine the Atlantic slave trade through the perspective of African people who were central to this history. Without any remaining narratives or testimonies of the actual experience of being captured, sold, and transported to British North America, Kelley recounts the harrowing voyage of the seventy-two enslaved men, women, and children who became the Hare's human cargo by, for example, describing their efforts to resist enslavement from their initial purchase on the Upper Guinea coast to their passage aboard the ship. Kelley's approach is influenced by social history's imperative to tell the story from below, as enslaved Africans challenged the terms their captors sought to dictate. Although this book does not offer new insights into the cultural practices of those enslaved, this "blind spot," as Kelley calls it, is of little consequence for how we understand the generation of Africans brought to British North America during the eighteenth century (p. 7). Instead, Kelley shows the geographic distribution of the captives, and he sketches out the culturally complex and linguistically diverse world the Hare's captives came from. The captain and crew endured a series of crises and challenges, illuminating how risky slave trading was for Europeans. Success often depended on appreciation and respect for the power of African traders who, as Kelley explains, manipulated Europeans for their own benefit. These African traders compelled them to adhere to African customs, such as palaver and pawnship, the practice by which European traders held Africans as security while the trade was being [End Page 661] deliberated. European slave traders' adherence to African customs, as well as their ability to manage their crew, often determined the outcome of the voyage. In the case of the Hare, Kelley shows the volatility of the slave trade by describing episodes like when some of the Hare's crewmembers jumped ship for a longboat off the African coast, or when Captain Godfrey executed an African who had led an attack on a different slave-trading vessel. Kelley weaves together these examples of peril and violence with less dramatic, yet frustrating, everyday occurrences on the voyage, like when the ship's stove caught fire during the journey back to North America. Scholars who research slavery in North America will appreciate Kelley's microhistory because it examines the gritty details of slave trading within the context of the larger forces at play within the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. The strength of Kelley's approach is that it concretizes the experience of both slave traders and those enslaved, and moves from detail to broader context effortlessly. In one passage, Kelley reconstructs life in "working Newport" with its "seamen, longshoremen, coopers, caulkers, glaziers, braziers, sailmakers, riggers, and porters," and in another he sketches out the contours of British mercantilism (p. 18). Ultimately, Kelley's well-researched exploration into the lives of Africans enslaved in British North America during the late eighteenth century is an indispensable study of the Atlantic slave trade. Ousmane K. Power-Greene Clark University Copyright © 2017 The Southern...

Economic Benefits of Mozambican Gas for Sasol and South African Government

The Sasol Pande Temane natural gas project was Mozambique’s first large-scale natural resource project. A review of the project conducted by the Centre of Public Integrity (CIP) found that the project had resulted in lost revenue for the Mozambican government and thus the expected benefits were not fully realised. The question that then arises is the extent to which the benefits from the project have been internalised by Sasol and or the South African Government. This paper (like the briefing note for Oxfam) addresses the impact of the gas project on Sasol and South Africa by considering the prices that South African customers paid for Mozambique gas; the economic benefits to South Africa, including to the Government of South Africa; the economic benefits flowing to Sasol from the Pande Temane project and the structure of the regulated price cap including applicable price tariffs. The analysis shows that there are very substantial benefits accruing to Sasol in the form of high profits resulting from the low cost of the Mozambican gas and the high prices that it was allowed to charge by the regulator, NERSA.

Circumvention of Anti-Dumping Measures: Law and Practice of South Africa

As a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), South Africa has honoured its international trade obligations through the enactment of domestic legislation which govern the requirements and procedures for the setting or changing of anti-dumping duties. In line with other WTO members introducing measures to curtail the circumvention of dumping activities by other WTO -members, South Africa adopted anti-circumvention measures in 1994. A guide introduced amongst others measures to counter those events where an exporter would absorb an anti-dumping duty; or if a related party supply the goods in the same or some other country; or where goods are exported as parts or components to be assembled in the South African Customs Union. Some of these anti-circumvention measures have on occasion been relied on and applied by the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) in South Africa as discussed hereunder.