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There is a dichotomy between the conventional theoretical view, which postulates that increased quality of governance stimulates economic growth and advances private capital formation. This study investigates the impact of governance quality and government expenditure on economic growth in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The study applied the Pooled Mean Group and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (PMG-ARDL) model. The annual panel covers the period 2002 – 2023, which comprises five selected countries from the SADC member states. The data set was obtained from the World Bank World Governance Indicators (WBWGI) databases. In the short run, economic growth was linked to government expenditure. In the long run, technical governance quality variables bring participants into action or service through control of corruption and the rule of law. The technical governance quality variables contribute to economic growth and are positive in the long run. At the same time, democratic governance quality variables influence economic growth negatively. However, it was highlighted that a permanent increase in country government expenditure could be experienced due to continuous randomness. The study revealed that weak governance and unstable government expenditure deteriorate economic growth complexity. Henceforth, this study has also enhanced the governance quality and government expenditure theories and empirical literature concerning economic growth by exposing that the governance quality of the selected SADC countries endures commotion. This study recommends that achieving selected SADC growth can be possible by balancing the technical governance quality variables and abating the democratic governance quality variables. Thus, the study contributes by outlining the golden thread that national and international policies should be prioritized in control of corruption and endorse governance effectiveness, regulatory quality, the rule of law, and managing expenditure within the threshold level.

The objective of the study was to explore alleged corrupt practices of stock theft by public sector officials in the selected rural areas of Giyani in the Limpopo Province, South Africa, focusing on causes and experiences. The local South African Police Service (SAPS) and Department of Justice and Constitutional Development: Giyani Magistrates’ Court (DOJ & CD: GMC) officials are allegedly touted to be allegedly involved in corrupt and fraudulent activities relating to this crime. From a qualitative standpoint; this study purposively selected 64 participants to form part of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) for data collection based on their respective knowledge and exposure to this crime. The collected data was analyzed to reach structured, reliable and conclusions adopting the Tesch technique. Major findings of this study indicate that the local SAPS and DoJ & CD: GMC were implicated in corruption acts, it is established that limited wages, greediness, profit and power, opportunity, as well as inadequate training, poor hiring practices and failure to adhere to a code of ethics are some of the notable causes of police corruption on stock theft cases. The improvement in legislation, punitive methods, remunerations, political partisanship, and the use of anti-corrupt strategies are cited as some recommendations in this study. Moreover, relevant stakeholders should work closely with provincial structures at rural communal levels, while avoiding a silo mentality to enhance collective actions thereof.