HIGHER EDUCATION – improving research and innovation
The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Science and Technology, Ms Nompendulo Mkhatshwa says Covid-19 has raised the importance of investing in science, technology, research and innovation. The committee was briefed recently by the Departments of Science and Innovation (DSI), and of Higher Education and Training (DHET) on these departments’ programmes to support President Cyril Ramaphosa’s post-Covid economic reconstruction and recovery plans (ERRPs). Sibongile Maputi reports.
Ms Mkhatshwa said ongoing work of the two departments is an assurance that the country is resilient and has the strength to respond comprehensively to future disasters. “If we are able to strengthen research and innovations, not only will government benefit, but the private sector will benefit too. We need to remind the private sector how the work of the DSI has assisted them during this pandemic and the recent unrest in KZN [KwaZulu-Natal] and Gauteng.”
The Director-General of DSI, Dr Phil Mjwara, and DHET’s Deputy Director for Skills Development, Mr Zukile Mvalo, outlined the ERRPs priorities and programmes, such as CoalCO2-X, which will reduce the use of pollutants and improve technological competitiveness, among other things.
Another programme is Platinum Valley, which involves rollout of hydrogen technology along the Limpopo-Durban corridor. The DHET has strengthened and focussed its training interventions, especially in TVET and CET colleges.
Mr Mvalo informed the committee that the interventions were demand-led. He indicated that 54 pilot centres have been established to diversify the programme and qualifications. In addition, together with the CET colleges, these were being capacitated to ensure compliance with accreditation requirements.
Committee members asked questions about the decadal plan, the green economy, the role of the Africa Free Trade Agreement, the importance of infrastructure and transport and energy security in the government’s recovery efforts. Members also emphasised the importance of achieving clean audits, especially for partner entities who play a supporting
role to the ERRP.
Ms Mkhatshwa said the committee was in full support of the call to localise and increase local employment and manufacturing. “Some of these plans should have been long-standing and we should be ahead in terms of having achieved them. We should be much more further ahead with these programmes.” She emphasised the importance of stakeholder consultation and planning, as well as interdepartmental planning with departments of transport, agriculture, minerals and energy.
Committee member Ms Annelie Lotriet said the although the department has interesting plans, it needs to ensure that there is an uptake from other departments. “Now we are sitting with budget cuts and municipalities that are bankrupt. We do not want science and technology programmes to remain a paper exercise.”
Another committee member, Ms Chantel King, agreed and said in order to achieve what DSI was proposing there needed to be a collaborative approach. She asked if departments are meeting with a view to sharing plans and whether local government had been involved in such plans.
Dr Mjwara asked that the department be allowed to come back to brief the committee adequately on all the plans and programmes. “We available to share what we doing and the roles of other departments. Contribution to the ERRP will be informed by the decadal plan that we are now completing. Key to some of the proposals is lessons we learnt and how the work of the department has not been taken forward by other government departments.”
He said the National Treasury has agreed to work with DSI in identifying areas where budget for science and technology innovations could earmarked in departmental budgets. “Investments that had been made could be repurposed to support the ERRP,” he said.
Mr Mvalo revealed that the apprenticeship grant had been increased from R165 000 to R206 000 per apprentice opportunity. He said the department is hopeful that as vaccinations increase, employers will open up.
The Standing Committee on Appropriations invited the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) to give its overview on the Second Special Appropriation Bill, writes Abel Mputing. The Bill aims to deal with the immediate socioeconomic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on South African society, as well as the civil unrest that took place in July.
The Chairperson of the committee, Mr S’fiso Buthelezi, said the bill provides urgent funding allocation to government functions dealing with these impacts. The PBO’s main task was to provide a background on the bill and what the members of the committee must take into account when dealing with it.
According to the Director of PBO, Dr Dumisani Jantjies, fiscal consolidation, such as the discontinuation of the R350 social relief grant, has had a negative effect on poor households. This, coupled with the rising rate of inequality, unemployment and poverty exacerbated the social instability we recently experienced. The government’s fiscal consolidation has also had an impact on its ability to invest in the economy. This, in turn, has had negative impact on employment creation and government’s ability to intervene in upholding socioeconomic rights of South African citizens.
In the PBO’s view, fiscal consolidation is limiting growth, could reverse socio-economic gains of the past, break the social compact and increase socio-economic instability. Economic growth can be stabilised by “investing in poor households. And this role can’t be left to the private sector. It’s government mandate to do so to boost the economy.”
There seems to be a realisation of this anomaly, said Head of Policy at PBO, Dr Nelia Orlandi, because the Second Appropriation Bill seeks to restore the R350 grant to alleviate the distress of poor households. But what is more urgent is the appropriation of R500 million for the 700 000 caregivers.
Interrogating the PBO’s critical stance on government fiscal consolidation, a member of the committee, Mr Oscar Mathafa, wanted to know if National Treasury has enough funds for social welfare programmes. Dr Jantjies responded that social stability is an investment. “As a country, we need to have tradeoffs and see if tax expenditures are utilised to deal with issues of inequality, unemployment and poverty rather than enriching
those already rich.”
In addition to that, he said, “we are finalising our discussion paper on the basic income grant, which will make our position clear on the pros and cons of such a social relief.”
While there are calls for government to use expenditure to drive growth and address poverty and unemployment, there are departments that still underspend their budget. Another member of the committee, Mr Zola Mlenzana, asked if under-expenditure demonstrates loopholes in the Appropriation Bill. Dr Orlandi replied: “There nothing wrong with the bill. The members of the committee need to know which instruments to use to hold those departments accountable.”
She cited the Budget Review Report as one such instrument. “This report provides the committee with the budget analysis of each department, its Auditor-General Financial Statement, and information linked to its Annual Performance Plan.”
On ailing state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the Chairperson asked what privatisation would do to SOEs. “Will that enable them to fulfil their economic and developmental mandates?” he asked. Dr Jantjies replied that the PBO is working on identifying their whether their mandate is economic or developmental. Once it has determined this, the PBO will be in a position to say if they should be privatised or not.
The PBO’s Deputy Director of Economics, Dr Seeraj Mohamed, intervened. “It’s critical to decided which SOEs should and should not be privatised. There are state entities that play a critical developmental role that should not be considered for privatisation. But also there are those that can be privatised without compromising the government developmental agenda.
The PBO wants the committee to use the mandate conferred to it by the Constitution to appropriate and to make amendments to the budget to ensure that it deals with inequality, unemployment and poverty in a systematic manner informed by socioeconomic realities. It seeks to empower the committee to extend government expenditure instruments to inject funds to poor household so that they
As a country, we need to have trade-offs and see if tax expenditures are utilised to deal with issues of inequality, unemployment and poverty rather than enriching those already rich.
can swell public and private economic activities, said Dr Mohamed.
“Given the declining private sector investment in the economy since the advent of economic recession in 2008, government has to take a lead in shoring up economic growth and ensuring there’s redistribution income and wealth to deal with challenges of inequality, unemployment and poverty that are the mandates of government than of the private sector.”