In this study, we explored the mediating effect of affective commitment on the relationship between human resource management practices (HRMPs) and the turnover intentions of university employees in Uganda using the theoretical lens of social exchange theory. The study was instigated by reportedly persistent increase in the cases of employee attrition in higher education institutions in Uganda in spite of Government’s attempts to improve the working conditions of the university employees. Using the cross-sectional survey research design, data were collected with the use of an adapted self-administered questionnaire from a sample of 722 academic and non-academic employees of three public and three private universities in Uganda. The results of structural equation modelling (SEM) indicated that HRMPs were significant positive predictors of affective commitment (rewards: β =.225; p<.001), promotions: β =.228; p<.001; and job security: β = .141; p<.001). However, HRM practices were negative predictors of turnover intentions (rewards: β = -.228; p<.001; promotion, β = -.215; p<.001; job security, β = -.138; p<.001). Furthermore, affective commitment was indeed a significant mediator of the relationship between HRMPs and turnover intentions of university employees. These findings made us draw the conclusion that when university employees perceive the institution’s HRMPs to be favourable, they will not only become committed to the organisation but also desire to remain working longer for it. Therefore, we recommend that the university managers in Uganda and similar countries should formulate and practise human resource management styles that do not only spur employee commitment but also enhance staff retention.

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In recent years, the combined effects of inflation, recession, high-interest rates, new investment media and technological advances in information processing have made “Cash Management” an increasingly important and complex subject (IMF, 2001; Ter-Minassian and Parente, 1995). At times, the desire and effort to squeeze out the most from every dollar and to minimise idle cash balances has become an obsession with many organisations and countries. Therefore, effective and efficient Cash Management has become a “sine qua non” for the success of any business organisation (Horcher, 2006a; White, 2006). And Countries, “as Corporate Entities”, are no exceptions to this basic fundamental business principle (Wood & Sangster, 2012). The Theoretical Framework of this study was underpinned by the Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984), the Financial Management Theory (Hayes and Nolan, 1974; Kingston, 1973), and the Modern Money Theory (Friedman, 1964; Keynes, 1930; Mitchell-Innes, 1914). We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 200 respondents. Our face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires which were administered online through email application via Google Forms (as a result of the novel, dreaded, and disruptive Covid-19 pandemic), coupled with PETS (Khan and Pessoa, 2010; Reinikka and Svennson, 2006) resulted in startling revelations. Our major finding was that a government lacking an efficient and effective control over its cash resources will definitely pay for its institutional deficiencies in multiple ways (Ahmed, 2016).

In recent years, the combined effects of inflation, recession, high-interest rates, new investment media and technological advances in information processing have made “Cash Management” an increasingly important and complex subject (IMF, 2001; Ter-Minassian and Parente, 1995). At times, the desire and effort to squeeze out the most from every dollar and to minimise idle cash balances has become an obsession with many organisations and countries. Therefore, effective and efficient Cash Management has become a “sine qua non” for the success of any business organisation (Horcher, 2006a; White, 2006). And Countries, “as Corporate Entities”, are no exceptions to this basic fundamental business principle (Wood & Sangster, 2012). The Theoretical Framework of this study was underpinned by the Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984), the Financial Management Theory (Hayes and Nolan, 1974; Kingston, 1973), and the Modern Money Theory (Friedman, 1964; Keynes, 1930; Mitchell-Innes, 1914). We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 200 respondents. Our face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires which were administered online through email application via Google Forms (as a result of the novel, dreaded, and disruptive Covid-19 pandemic), coupled with PETS (Khan and Pessoa, 2010; Reinikka and Svennson, 2006) resulted in startling revelations. Our major finding was that a government lacking an efficient and effective control over its cash resources will definitely pay for its institutional deficiencies in multiple ways (Ahmed, 2016).

The salary payment of government workers constitute a significant percentage of total government expenditure in developing economies, simply because the government remains the largest or biggest employer. The Government Payroll system, therefore, requires a robust control mechanism to detect and prevent the occurrence of “payroll fraud”, as the irregularity denies the state of huge sums of monies going down the drain and into private pockets, and which could have otherwise been channelled into some critical sectors of the economy; and to minimise the excessive borrowing by government to fill the gap. The several efforts and reforms by the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) and the Ghana Audit Service (GAS) in particular; and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in general, to clean the Government Payroll of these “payroll frauds” consistently over the years have not yielded the desired results. The various studies conducted on “payroll fraud” in Ghana did not address themselves to the introduction of the “Electronic-Salary Payment Voucher (E-SPV) system since 2014, which was hailed by many as the final panacea to the “annual ritual of ghost workers on the government payroll”. To fill the gap, we conducted this empirical cross-sectional research on “payroll fraud” based on the “fraud triangle theory” and the “graft estimation model”. We employed non probability purposive, but convenient, sampling methodology by means of structured questionnaires and face-to-face interviews to arrive at our conclusion. Our major finding was that “payroll fraud” can never be eliminated (but only minimised), and must therefore be treated and necessarily managed to the barest minimum (between 1% and 5%), just as normal “bad debts” in Financial Statements. Policy makers will have to revisit the issues about “Ghost Workers”, in the midst of the novel and dreaded, and disastrous Convid-19 pandemic.

The novel, dreaded, disruptive, and disastrous Covid-19 pandemic took the world by storm in January, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana is part of the worldwide coronavirus disease caused by “severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2)”. On 12th January, 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness that affected a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. This was reported to the WHO on 31st December, 2019. On 11th March, 2020, WHO declared the novel Covid-19 a global pandemic (Graphic Online, 2020a). It is worthy to note how the Government of Ghana, political parties, citizens, scientists and academia, corporate entities, faith based organisations, traditional rulers, have offered varied forms of interventions to combat the scourge. The Theoretical Framework of this research was underpinned by the Theory of Epidemics, the Agency Theory, the Rational Choice Theory, and the Stakeholder Theory. We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 250 respondents. We also employed face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires (Braun and Clarke, 2012; Denzin, 2017), which were administered online through email application via Google Forms. One of our major findings was that with the approval of Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by the UK’s MHRA on 1st December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020b); and subsequently by the US FDA a week later on 8th December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020c), all governments around the globe in general, but Africa in particular, must make conscious efforts backed by adequate budgetary allocations to secure maximum quantities of the vaccines for their vulnerable teeming population.

Coal mining business is now faced with various challenges such as export restrictions policy, an increase in value added products, and the decline in market prices of products. To be able to compete, mining companies are expected to increase productivity and efficiency and make continuous improvements in the production process. In the mining process, the availability of equipment and dump truck unloading tool will determine the sustainability of production that have an impact on productivity and efficiency. The purpose of this study was to optimize the production of coal mining in the context of the efficient use of equipment using the match factor, queues, and linear programming. The research location is in the area of the mining concession contractor KTD Corp is in the village of Embalut, District Tenggarong Seberang, Kertanegara Kutai Regency, East Kalimantan in October-November 2015. Unloading equipment used backhoe excavator is 5 units and 32 units of dump trucks. The simulation results match factor generated by the method optimal dump truck needs 26 units, while the queuing method and linear programming as much as 25 units of dump truck. The results of production optimization with linear programming method produced mining productivity of 1,208 BCM of overburden per hour with the optimum cost of $ 0,909/BCM.

Rural education is a short board of China’s education. It is of great significance to strengthen the construction of the teacher team in rural middle schools for Rural Revitalization in the new era. The problem of structural shortage of teachers, reflected by the phenomenon of “what biology teachers teach is not what they learned” in rural middle schools, is a key issue that has been existing for a long time in the development of rural middle school education in our country. It is also a key problem that must be paid attention to and urgently solved in the face of the new situation, new tasks and new requirements. In response to this phenomenon that caused by the decline of students and the loss of biological teachers in rural middle schools, the government needs to play a supporting role and the school leaders of rural middle schools should innovate their systems and concepts. What’s more, biological teachers should reflect on their hearts and have the educational feelings of being willing to develop the countryside. Only when the government, middle school leaders and biology teachers have formed an educational synergy, can we better solve that harmful phenomenon and promote the healthy and rapid development of rural middle school education.