An implementation analysis of the Vukuzakhe emerging contractor development programme in the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport.

Abstract

This dissertation reviews the implementation of the Vukuzakhe Emerging Contractor Development Programme. The Vukuzakhe Emerging Contractor Development Programme was initiated by the KwaZulu Department of Transport to fulfil the South African democratic government's mandate of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE).The dissertation identifies and describes the barriers to, and problems of the implementation of the Vukuzakhe programme. Rossi and Freeman's (1989) approach to program monitoring/process evaluation is used as an analytical framework. The study examines how emerging contractors view the admission, progression and exiting strategies of the Vukuzakhe programme. The triangulation of both qualitative and quantitative methods was used to try and overcome issues of validity and bias. The qualitative method employed was in-depth interviews (ie face to face interviews) with the KwaZulu Department of Transport officials. These are officials from the DOT's Economic Empowerment Directorate who are directly responsible for the implementation of the Vukuzakhe programme. Three out of five officials agreed to participate in the interviews. Nevertheless, the data that was gathered from those three officials was very informative as far as the Vukuzakhe programme is concerned. Therefore the sampling that was used was purposive. The quantitative method employed was a structured, self administered questionnaire used to gather data from the emerging contractors. For this dissertation a sample of 20 emerging contrators who were in different stages of the Vukuzakhe programme were randomly selected from the database. Out of the 20 selected emerging contractors only 10 agreed to participate in the interviews. The results of the interviews was not generalised to all emerging contractors. However, the findings gathered were informative as far as the implementation process of the Vukuzakhe programme is concerned. Since both qualitative and quantitaive data were collected, content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data and the descriptive statistics using the SPSS programme was used to analyse the quantitative data.