African Journal of Accounting and Social Sciences

Market Availability and Food Security in Rungwe District

Atupakisye Kalinga — 2024-11-03

This paper assessed market availability as one of the key factors for improving
food security in Rungwe District. Specifically, the study assessed the role of market
availability on food security and investigated constraints facing households in the
utilisation of market opportunities in the study area. The study was carried out in
Mpandapanda and Kikota villages of Rungwe District and about 150 respondents
were interviewed for the study. Data were collected through documentary review,
household interviews, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, ranking
and field observation. While qualitative data were analysed using content analysis.
Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS and Excel spreadsheet. The study
results show that Kiwira market was important for improving both food security
and household income. About 87.3per cent of the respondents indicated that
Kiwira market encouraged households to produce food crops for both sale and
consumption which improves food security among households. About74 per cent
of the respondents showed that they have consumed three meals per day, which
was contributed by crop diversification in the area. Market availability promoted
food security through encouraging food crop production and facilitating income
source for food purchases in the study area. About 94 per cent of the respondents
indicated that financial problem was one of the major constraints facing farmers in the area. The study recommends that the government and private sectors
should provide financial support to rural farmers to enhance efficient utilisation of
marketing opportunities in the area.

The Role of Mobile Phone in Enhancing Marketing Performance of Women - Owned Micro and Small Enterprise in Mbeya Region

Kasena Bandoma — 2024-11-03

Mobile phone is considered as an economic tool that can liberate women
entrepreneurs from poverty and empowers them with marketing knowledge.
Although mobile phone can accredit women-owned enterprises with business
enhancing information, services and market opportunities to become efficient,
innovative and competitive, the gains from mobile phones usage rests on the
specific purposes for which business enterprises intend to support, the level of
usage and technological advancement of the country. Moreover, the contribution
of mobile usage in enterprise marketing performance is yet to be harnessed and
little is known on women-owned micro and small enterprises in Mbeya city. As
such, the present study was conducted to assess female owned micro and small
enterprises performance using mobile phone, and to establish the individual effect
of each of the five identified dimensions of mobile phone usage on marketing
performance. Data were collected from 90 enterprises using interview schedule in which cross-sectional survey and stratified random sampling techniques were
employed. Ordinal logistic regression analysis at 95 per cent confidence level was
employed to assess the effect of mobile phone usage on marketing performance.
The findings indicate that using mobile phone for promotional purposes (p =
0.027), transactional use (p = 0.028), marketing intelligence (p = 0.003), and
relationship building (p = 0.045) positively predict marketing performance of an
enterprise. This implies that as enterprises embarks more on using mobile phone
for promoting their products, transacting with their customers, collecting market
intelligence information and building relationship with customers, the more
they gain in their marketing performance. The study also found that, the use of
mobile phone for operational purposes is statistically insignificant (p = 0.601) in
predicting the marketing performance of female micro and small enterprises.
As such, there is no relationship between operational use of mobile phone and
marketing performance of the women owned enterprises. The study concludes
that for mobile phone usage to enhance marketing performance, it depends on
the purpose for which it is put. The study therefore, recommends that women
owned micro and small enterprises should put more emphasis on mobile phone
usage in building promotional capabilities, transactional capabilities, marketing
intelligence capabilities and relational building capabilities as these are likely to
result in enhanced marketing performance.

Profit maximization in Vegetable Production in Western Usambara mountains in Tanzania: Application of Game Theory

Luzabeth Kitali — 2024-11-03

Vegetable production is a risky enterprise because of its susceptibility to a number of risks and uncertainties. Such risks and uncertainties include bad climatic conditions, price fluctuations, pests and diseases, land fragmentation, variability of production costs per unit of land and lack of high quality agro-chemicals. The risks and uncertainties make it difficult for farmers to make decisions on the types of vegetables to grow so as to maximize profit. The paper draws on game theory, and has two objectives: to identify categories of farmers on the basis of their risk perceptions, and to find out the types of vegetables each category of farmers grows to maximize profit. Socio-economic surveys were done to collect information on vegetable production where both input and output data were gathered together with average profits. A random sample of 103 farmers who grow vegetables was
selected in three villages in Lushoto District, Tanga region-Tazania. The maximax, regret and Laplace criteria showed that the most profitable vegetable was tomato, from which a farmer earned Tsh 871,000/=, -30,000/= and 785,000/= per 0.5 acre, respectively. The results relating to the maximin criterion showed that carrot was the most preferred crop, where a farmer earned an average of Tsh 600,000/= per 0.5 acre. The study concludes that the decisions on what type of vegetable to produce is influenced by a farmer’s characteristics and the perception of risks and uncertainties. Pessimistic farmers grow carrots and optimistic ones grow tomatoes. It is thus recommended that policy makers need to understand vegetable growers’ behaviour and perception, and uncertainties when planning to assist them so that they maximize profit.

Elected and Appointed Officials’ Attitudes and the Interaction in Construction of Health and Education Infrastructures in Morogoro District Council

Kelvin Njunwa — 2024-11-03

This study assessed interaction between the elected and the appointed officials
and their attitude toward each other in the construction of health and education
infrastructure in Morogoro District Council. The study was carried out in four wards
in Morogoro District Council. The data were collected from the selected as sample
size of 64 elected and appointed officials. The study adopted a case study research
design and qualitative approach. The data were collected using a questionnaire,
a FGD guide and a key informant interview (KII) guide. The findings indicate that
the level of political-administrative interaction between elected and appointed
officials in the project was moderate. The moderate level of interaction is likely to
be the cause of low transparency and accountability of the elected and appointed
officials. The findings indicate further that both elected and appointed officials
had negative attitude towards each other in the implementation of the projects.
The study concludes that there is negligence in monitoring the relationships
between elected and appointed officials in the implementation of development projects which results to moderate interaction. Based on the conclusions, it is
recommended that, in increasing interaction between elected and appointed
officials and creating conducive environment for positive interactions, Morogoro
District should facilitate regular training and awareness campaigns on the
importance of their relations and positive attitudes towards each other. The study
recommends further that the appointed officials should practice the principle of
neutrality in their implementation of development projects. Political neutrality will
minimize politicization of public services and reduce conflicts between the two
parties.

Access and Use of Mobile Money by Microentrepreneurs in Moshi District, Tanzania

Stephen Akyoo — 2024-11-03

This study assessed the accessibility and usage of mobile money services by
micro-entrepreneurs in Moshi District, Tanzania. A multistage sampling technique
with a combination of random and purposive sampling was adopted to obtain a
total of 120 shop retailers for questionnaire survey and six key informants for in
depth interviews. Data were collected through questionnaire and checklist guide
and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and content
analysis. The findings show that most (70%) of the respondents owned one mobile
handset. Almost (95%) respondents were using mobile money services for their
businesses, and M-Pesa from Vodacom had the highest number of subscribers.
Nearly, two thirds (65%) of the respondents had one Subscriber Identity Module
(SIM) card. The majority of the respondents frequently (often or very often) used
mobile money services for paying bills (91.7%), sending or withdrawing cash
(91.6%), making purchases and commodity dealing (90.8%), making money
transfer (87.5%), recharging airtime (84.1%) and storing money (72.7%). It is
concluded that mobile money has been adopted by microentrepreneurs’ even in
rural areas. Furthermore, micro entrepreneurs were easily accessing the mobile
money services mainly through Vodacom, Tigo and Airtel telecommunication companies. The study recommends that the user should adopt the services so
to benefit from their business. Furthermore, these mobile telecommunication
companies should offer affordable services especially on the marginalized rural
areas.