BUDGET VOTE SPEECH BY MINISTER OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, MOSIBUDI MANGENA, National Assembly
17 June 2004
Honourable Speaker,
Honourable Members
Chairs of Boards,
CEOs of Science Councils, Vice Chancellors of Universities, Leaders and role players in Science and Technology in South Africa,
Ladies and Gentlemen
I would like to congratulate the first Chair of the Portfolio Committee on Science and Technology, Mr Eugene Ngcobo, on his appointment. It is not often that someone so well qualified in science decides to serve in the political domain. I am equally pleased to be working with Deputy Minister, Derek Hanekom, and Director-General Rob Adam.
Common to any political administration anywhere in the world are certain core portfolios such as Treasury, Foreign Affairs, Education and Health. However, if you really want to understand the vision of a particular government you need to look beyond these basic portfolios to ministries that may be less common. The creation of such ministries by a Head of State reveals the direction in which a government intends to move. When President Mbeki announced the new Ministry of Science and Technology on 28 April, he motivated his decision in terms of the need to modernise the South African economy and society. South Africa then became one of a growing band of countries, including Brazil and the Peoples Republic of China, that have created standalone ministries to integrate science and technology into their national growth paths. In our President's State of the Nation Address on 21 May, he signalled Government's intention to increase resources for research and development to underpin this intent.
How will we give expression to President Mbeki's vision for our portfolio? What role can the Department of Science and Technology, or the DST, as we are often called, play in social and economic development? Science and technology are highly cross-cutting activities. The application of new technologies and the knowledge derived from leading edge research contributes to increased export earnings when breakthroughs are made, for example, in the fields of minerals extraction or agro-processing. When a more effective TB vaccine or magnetic resonance imaging machine is developed, this has immense benefits for human health and hence for improved quality of life. When materials and chemical research results in affordable building materials or safe drinking water in rural areas, this has positive implications for our citizens in the second economy. We in Science and Technology provide the foundations supporting the delivery that ultimately take place in different sectors.
What are the ingredients for getting South African science and technology working? Firstly, we need to invest in our system. After the seminal events of 1990, the government of the day drastically curtailed its strategic technology-based missions, such as its nuclear capability and the technology platform underpinning South Africa's military dominance in the subcontinent. This had a profound effect on research and development in our country, with total expenditure across public and private sectors falling from 1,04% of GDP in 1991 to 0,75% in 1993. The new government inherited a science system that had had its key drivers removed. The challenge was to motivate our scientists by re-directing them towards new missions of national competitiveness and quality of life, and to produce a cohort of young scientists more representative of South Africa's people. Unfortunately, in the face of these challenges, the national R&D expenditure fell still further to 0.69% in 1997.
I can now report, however, on the authority of the most recent survey conducted by the Department of Science and Technology that our expenditure on R&D rose to 0,76% of GDP in the 2001/02 financial year. Over half of this research and development is conducted by the private sector, indicating the increasing role of innovation in South African industry. However, we need to raise this level of investment to at least 1% of GDP, which is the target we set ourselves in the 2002 Research and Development Strategy. In our estimation we are still about R2 billion per annum short of this target. About half of this shortfall should come from Government and the other half from the private sector.
In the current budget, the tight fiscal conditions and pressing social and infrastructural needs resulted in the budget request of R1b new and additional resources being trimmed in the ultimate allocation to around one tenth of the amount.
Although this amount did not meet our expectations, some important gains were made. R10m was given for the establishment of the new National Research Institute. We are also one of the departments that were granted additional funding to continue our Poverty Reduction projects. These amounts of R45m, R47m, and R53m over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework period will be deployed in community level projects that use science and technology to create employment and businesses on a sustainable basis.
The first ingredient of a healthy science and technology system is investment. The other ingredient is human resources. It is often said that technology walks on two legs. You can secure the intellectual property deriving from a research programme, but unless you also attract and keep the people who can understand and apply it, your patents are sterile.
How do we then attract young people, particularly young black people, to careers in science, engineering and technology? This is not an easily answered question. There is a wide range of options open. In a fast-paced world there is a perceived opportunity cost in spending between 8 and 10 years after matriculation before graduating with a doctoral degree. Role models in exciting areas of scientific development are critical. In the fast-paced world that I have talked about, these role models probably have to look more like Mark Shuttleworth, our first South African Astronaut rather than Albert Einstein. But it is really in the black community that we need to concentrate our efforts. This is why President Mbeki focused on Ms Nomathemba Kontyo in his February State of the Nation Address in Parliament. Nomathemba won a prize for an essay she wrote on Space in a competition set up by NASA. She travelled to the United States as part of her prize and visited various NASA installations.
Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, a 32 year-old rural youngster from the heartland of Limpopo Province is another example of what we are trying to achieve. The story of Professor Marwala gives us hope.
In recognition of his work in the field of dynamic systems and artificial intelligence, Professor Tshilidzi Marwala won the Tribute Achievers Award, an award that was won in 2002 by Mark Shuttleworth, the first African in space. Tshilidzi also won National Science and Technology Forum awards and the National Research Foundation's President's Award in 2004.
We need to systematically target black youngsters with ability, to provide career guidance and inspiration. These things need to happen quickly, but as a whole, the school system cannot necessarily respond that quickly. This means we have to separate issues. For example, given that there are only a few thousand black matriculants with appropriate passes in mathematics, would it be that hard to double the number? Of those that do pass well, how many enter science and engineering? How do we increase this number?
These tasks are difficult but not impossible. For example, following the enactment of the Minerals Development Bill, that promotes increasing black ownership within the South African mining industry, the intake into first year Mining Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand has risen from between 20 and 30 to well over 100. The prominence of role models like Mzi Khumalo, Patrice Motsepe and Bridgette Radebe has also been a factor here.
In an effort to deepen learning in science, the National Science Week project, which has been taking place in May of every year since 1998, is now attracting many more teachers and learners. This enables the valuable lessons to be taken back to the classroom. The Departments of Science and Technology and Education are finalising a collaboration plan to ensure that the National Science Week is part of a comprehensive strategy to improve participation and performance in mathematics, science and technology education. We thank the provincial education departments that have championed initiatives and events linked to the Science Week. This allows us to strengthen and complement the programmes to encourage and better mathematics and science outcomes at matriculation level.
What are some of the key policies that the DST will introduce in the 2004/05 financial year? The Indigenous Knowledge Systems policy will come into effect in the coming Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). The policy draws together four key elements, namely culture and redress in the context of indigenous knowledge, traditional medicine, contributions to the second economy and innovation.
A National Technology Transfer Strategy will soon be completed. This strategy is premised by the inevitable role that technology plays in wealth creation and in addressing the challenges of social development. Two technology transfer institutions Godisa, (that creates new technology based enterprises) and Tshumisano (that incubates existing technology based enterprises) have already been established by DST as Trusts and span many sectors, for example agro-processing, software, chemicals and small scale mining.
Currently no national policy exists to regulate the exploitation of intellectual property derived from State-funded research. This leaves us vulnerable as a country and results in a chaotic environment for innovation, where institutions and companies make the rules up as they go along. Within the next few months the DST will release a policy for public comment.
All of us know about the digital divide between the developed and the developing worlds. Recently we have been confronted by another technology-based divide, this time in biotechnology. The DST responded with a National Biotechnology Strategy that the South African Parliament voted significant resources for, and resulted in the establishment of a series of Biotechnology Regional Innovation Centres across the country. The most likely technology wave of the future is nanotechnology, or the technology of the very small, where devices and systems will be built at a molecular level. The nanotechnology strategy being produced by DST will position South Africa in this regard, rather than allow this new wave simply to engulf us.
Parliament is being asked today to vote for a significant increase in funding for science and technology in the context of poverty reduction. What can we contribute in this regard? Smart science and relevant technology provide better and more economical ways of providing services. DST will use new resources to develop a "best practice" technology advice unit, which, for example, provides advice to other departments on labour intensive technologies and pilots new technologies in areas such as sanitation, small-scale mining and the commercialisation of indigenous foods.
I shall now turn to the international arena. Science is an increasingly global activity and international funding of South African science rose from essentially nil in 1994 to 6% in 2002. Science has also led in areas of debate around issues of collective responsibility and multilateral solutions to global problems and the protection of global public goods. Climate change is a very good example of this. That is why, in the DST, there is a high investment in our interactions with the global science and technology community to ensure a net flow of scientific knowledge, funds and resources into South Africa.
There have been a number of positive international developments for South Africa recently. These include the signing of crucial co-operation agreements with countries like Japan, Republic of Korea, Brazil and Malaysia; the development of a solid science platform in the trilateral India-Brazil-South Africa engagement and the leveraging of significant new funds for South African and African science and technology from international agencies and foreign countries. The DST is planning further strategic expansion of South Africa's science and technology international profile in the next year as a continuation of our successful sojourns in the global environment in the last year.
The 2004/5 financial year will be characterised by the intensified implementation of these new agreements and plans, and an increase in South Africa's science and technology footprint on the world stage. These will include the hosting of an International Science, Technology and Innovation Fair with our major global partners as lead exhibitors in November 2004, as part of our 10 year celebrations. A core component of the South African exhibition at the Fair will be the showcasing of science and technology achievements in these ten years of democracy by both the South African public and private sectors.
In this financial year we will sign science and technology agreements with Argentina, Australia, Chile, Romania and Kenya. We will also be exploring further bilateral collaboration with a focus on Asia and Eastern Europe.
South Africa's role at the forefront of NEPAD is, to a significant extent, based on our ability to deploy scientific knowledge and technological solutions on the continent. Following the inaugural conference in Johannesburg in November 2003, South Africa now chairs the African Minister's Council on Science and Technology, or AMCOST, as the policy co-ordination body. The key decisions of the conference, including the establishment of AMCOST and the Ministerial Declaration, are being tabled for consideration by the Heads of State and Government at the July African Union Summit. The work plan for 2004/5 will include the expansion of the African Institute of Mathematical Science, which holds its first graduation tomorrow, during which the first groups of students from fourteen African countries will graduate. We are also planning for the increase in the number of nodes of the African Laser Centre and the launch of new Centres of Excellence in the twelve flagship programmes in Africa's five regions.
Members, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentleman, I have laid down the broad strategies supporting the DST budget. Deputy Minister Derek Hanekom will spend a few minutes giving you some illustrative examples of our achievements and our new programmes. In the words of a former Indian Minister of Education, Mr Manohar Joshi: "Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don't worship it. Feed it!"