Nomonde Madubula

Areas of research that have worked on in past 19 years include:

• Assessing the Response of Local Government on Climate Change; given the recent episodes of droughts and flooding in South Africa, the study assesses the responsiveness of climate change to IDPs and the Budgets and made climate change response recommendations in the sphere.
• Alternative Financing Mechanisms for Disaster Management in South Africa; where government needs to come up with ‘ex-ante strategies’ of financing disasters than the use of typically funding disasters through conditional grants, and as such, recommendations were made.
• Household Vulnerability to Climate Change Disasters: An application of the Household Vulnerability Index (HVI) in South Africa; to provide the basis for strategic interventions as well as recommending a potential suite of fiscal and economic measures to be used to improve the resilience of communities to climate change for targeted beneficiaries.
• Financing of Waste Management in South Africa; currently, it is done on an ad hoc basis, so the aim is to come up with recommendations for sustainable financing mechanisms.
• Addressing Gender Inequality through Gender Budgeting in the Public Sector; in South Africa, commitments have been made to address gender inequality. However, no concrete and systematic analysis has been effective in addressing gender inequality. Hence the study assesses the effectiveness of key departmental budgets in addressing gender inequality and made recommendations on how the budgets of national departments can be repositioned to address gender inequalities effectively.
• Review of Women’s Charter Equality Process; Parliament, in the National Council of Provinces, embarked on a process of reviewing the status of South Africa’s Women’s Charter Equality to take stock of achievements/weaknesses that impede on advancement and realization of gender equality in South Africa. To that effect, FFC was asked by the NCOP to ‘Assess the financial allocations on Gender Mainstreaming’ in all the provinces and municipalities and advise/recommend on the status of financial allocations/budgeting to gender mainstreaming.
• Strategies for Preventing Corruption in the Public Sector and the Funding of the Anti-Corruption Agencies; South Africa has various laws, policies and institutions to repel corruption; however, the challenge of corruption is severe and exacerbating, thus they study recommended steps and mechanisms that can be put in place to prevent or eradicate corruption.
• Conditional Grants /Review of Transfers in the Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations Systems, with the aim of reviewing the conditional grant transfers to province and municipalities to assess the status quo and its principles and make recommendations.
• Assessing the Effectiveness of IGFR Instruments to the Water Resources Challenges; the fiscal environment is constrained, with South Africa being a water-scarce country which in turn affects the fiscus, resulting in recommendations being made.
• Learner Support Materials (LSMs) in Public Ordinary Schools, where a need was deemed fit, as there were problems associated with LSM, and as such, the research was to find out whether the problems are administrative or financial in nature, and advice and recommendations were made.
• Further Education & Training in South Africa, with the focus on investigating the funding mechanism in place and then providing advice or recommendation on the best alternative form to fund the programme.
• National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) in Public Ordinary Schools, with the aim of investigating the possibility of extending the NSNP from the primary to secondary school phase and making recommendations.
• Regional Services Council (RSC) levies; since a proposal by the government was to abolish them, and as such, FFC has to assess its reform process and advice.
• Provincial Own Revenue, where the intention was to obtain information on the progress made by Provincial Treasuries with respect to enhancing and optimising their own revenues, and recommendations were made.
• Cost of Basic Schooling; to investigate the adequate cost of providing basic education in South Africa, as currently it is done on an ad hoc basis, and make recommendations.
• Evaluation of the Provision of Learner Transport in Public Ordinary Schools; emanated from discussions at Parliament, the fact that learners, especially in rural areas, walk long distances to schools, and as such, the purpose was to gather the status quo and come up with recommendations.
• Assessment of Factors Affecting Performance of Public Hospitals in South Africa, with the aim of assessing dominant factors that affects the performance of public hospitals and make recommendations thereof.
• Managing the Provincial Wage Bill to Contain Fiscal Stress; the aim is to come up with recommendations for managing personnel expenditure to achieve an efficient mix of resources between personnel versus non-personnel expenditure.
• Revenue Retention Model for the Health Department; in light of the fact that fiscal allocations were inadequate in carrying provincial health priorities and as such other revenue enhancement measures need to be examined, and as such, recommendations were made.
• Financing and Efficiency of Public Health Care in South Africa; to evaluate the current health care funding arrangements and ascertain whether public health care in South Africa is under-funded or not and come up with recommendations.

Overall- It is to monitor policy issues in place and the impact they had on the research projects, Provide analytical inputs in the Research Projects & Recommendations, Prepare & submit reports advising/recommending on the policy implications of the research findings, report to Parliament and other organized government departments & lastly publish the reports on annual submissions, technical reports, policy briefings, and presentations.

Areas of research include

• Environmental & Intergovernmental Tax Policy Options, with a focus on investigating international trends of environmental &Intergovernmental taxation. Further, assess the appropriateness of these current tax regimes in South Africa and formulate proposals for the adjustments in the nature and levels of these taxes.
• Energy Subsidies, where my responsibility was to collect electricity data from municipalities and analyse.
• LPG Transport Fuels, to find out exactly if it can be an alternative fuel option and how it is done and taxed in other countries.
• Environmental Fiscal Reforms using Market-Based Instruments, in the context of levy-based instruments, to incentives environmentally positive behaviour and, as such, provide a policy framework for environmentally related taxes or charges in the South African context by doing a literature review and comparing internationally how other countries have applied it.
• Fiscal Decentralisation, with the aim of drawing some lessons internationally on how other countries handle their affairs and finances.
• Value Added Tax (VAT), with the focus of comparing how other countries internationally tax VAT on books.
• Property Rate Taxes, the aim was that before a Bill can be published, which later became an Act, and therefore it was imperative to assess the current situation as that was going to help in the final decision on how the rates are going to be taxed.

Performed the following functions:

• Invigilation & Marking of assignments and tests for the students in Economics.
• Mentoring first-year students.

In the Exams department, performed the following:

• General office duties.
• Resolve all telephone queries from distance learning students, examiners, and external associations in relation to the subjects concerned
• Administration duties related to exams.
• Telephone liaison with students.
• Collating papers for exams & despatching to various centres in preparation for exams.