Science and Technology Amendment Bill [B5-2011]: finalisation; National Research Foundation: Shortlist of Board Candidates

Science and Technology

21 June 2011
Chairperson: Mr N Ngcobo (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Committee accepted the Amendment Bill with some amendments, as contained in an Addendum handed out by the Department of Science and Technology. The DST provided clarity on Clause 4 which allowed the Minister to make a decision relating to the transfer of property (excluding land and building) “after consultation” with the Board instead of “with concurrence of” the Board.

The DST’s proposed a shortlist of candidates to be appointed to the NRF Governing Board was accepted by the Committee with a number of recommendations. In particular, the Committee suggested that the DST verify the employment history of one of the shortlisted candidates. Committee members also posed questions about the Minister’s statement that the Board members should be representative of certain sectors or fields of knowledge. The Committee asked if there had been a conscious effort to include candidates representative of the specified fields.

Committee members made suggestions to be included in the draft Oversight Programme of the Committee, including a possible visit to the Technology Innovation Agency centres in Cape Town, KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng as well as including activities to do with to the acid mine drainage issue.

Meeting report

Science and Technology Laws Amendment Bill [B5 – 2011]: finalisation
The Committee went clause by clause through the Bill approving each clause:

Clause 1:
The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to the amendments.

Clause 2:
The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to the amendments.

Clause 3:
The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to the amendments.

Clause 4:
The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to the amendments.

Mr P Smith (IFP) did not have any objections to Clause 4 but asked if there had been sufficient deliberation as to what “mischief” had been remedied by this amendment of section 6 of Act 46 of 1988. Clause 4 amended section 6 to insert the words “after consultation” and delete “concurrence of the” to read:

6(3) “The Minister may after consultation with the [concurrence of the] Board determine that property (excluding land and buildings) of the CSIR used by the CSIR in connection with the performance or exercise of the function or power transferred in terms of subsection (1), shall be transferred to the body or persons of department of State concerned.”

Dr Molapo Qhobela, DST Deputy Director-General: Human Capital and Knowledge Systems, replied that the amendment contained in Clause 4 gave greater flexibility to the Minister as well allowed more possibility for the purpose of the legislation to be realised.

Mr Smith said he was not entirely convinced by the DST’s argument. The amendment of this provision was the first substantive amendment being made to the principal Act. It was his understanding that any substantive amendments would be to correct an existing problem, yet it was not clear what problem was being correcting by Clause 4.

Mr Smith said there had been no problems with the legislation in its current form and so the amendment was a preemptive move to give the Minister greater flexibility. The DST’s argument for the amendment was not particularly strong and did not address the CSIR’s concern that the Minister appointed the Board and then also had the power to dispose of the assets. Mr Smith would like to have heard a stronger argument from the DST or would like to have at least heard the CSIR’s rebuttal to the DST’s argument for Clause 4.

Mr Brian Muthwa, Head of Legal Services, DST, said that the powers given to the Minister in section 6(3) had been amended so as to be brought in line with the powers given to the Minister in section 6(1) of the Act.

Mr Muthwa said the CSIR had actually suggested the amendment but CSIR had thought it had not been taken care of which is why it signaled that it had a problem with the amendment.

Mr Smith and the Chairperson were satisfied with the amendment if the CSIR did indeed support it.

Mr Muthwa stated that Clause 4 did oblige the Minister to first consult with the Board before making a decision.

The Chairperson said he disagreed with Mr Muthwa’s interpretation.

Ms M Dunjwa (ANC) agreed with the Chairperson and said that the word “may” in the Clause meant that the Minister was not obliged to consult the Board before making a decision.

Dr Qhobela replied that the “may” referred to the word “determine” and not to the phrase “after consultation”.

Ms Phumelele Ngema, Parliamentary Legal Advisor, stated that (as proposed in the Addendum) the commas placed before and after the phrase “after consultation” served the purpose of clarifying the Clause. The word “may” did not refer to “after consultation”.

The Committee noted that their copies of the Amended Bill did not contain the “commas” Ms Ngema had referred to.

The DST and the Committee then realised that this was because the copy of the Amended Bill before the Committee did not include corrections made by the DST. These corrections were contained in the Addendum that the DST then handed out to Committee members.

The relevant changes made to Clause 4 were as follows:

On page 3, in line 21, after "may" to insert “,”.
On page 3 in line 22, after "Board" to insert “,”.

The Committee agreed to the Clause with the insertion of the necessary commas.

Clauses 5 to 51:
The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to all the amendments contained in Clauses 5 to 51.

Clause 52:
Mr Muthwa gave an explanation for further amendments to be made to Clauses 52 and 54 (as contained in the Addendum). The DST had been advised by the State Law Advisors to reverse the amendment made to Clause 52 which had been to insert that “‘Constitution’ means the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996”. The reference to the 1996 Constitution should be deleted so that the word “Constitution” in the Bill referred to the 1993 Interim Constitution as was the case in the principal Act.

Ms M Shinn (DA) asked why it was necessary to revert back to the 1993 Interim Constitution. Surely all legislation should be compliant with the most recent 1996 Constitution?

Mr Sisa Makabeni, State Law Advisor in the Office of the Chief State Law Advisor, said it was not the case that the Bill was reverting to the 1993 Interim Constitution and that the Bill was compliant with the 1996 Constitution. The reference to the 1993 Interim Constitution was for the purpose of continuity of the cut-off date for crimes committed by board members. The principal Act had made reference to the disqualification of board members for crimes committed after the commencement of the 1993 Interim Constitution. If that were to be changed to acts committed after the commencement of the 1996 Constitution, then members who had previously been disqualified under the Act would no longer be. This did not make logical sense.

The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to the amendments to Clause 52 as contained in the DST’s Addendum.

Clause 53:
The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to the amendments.

Clause 54:
Dr Qhobela stated that further amendments to Clause 54 had been made and were contained in the Addendum. The changes made were linked to the decision to revert back to the time of the commencement of the 1993 Interim Constitution as a cut-off date for crimes committed.

On page 14, from line 10, to omit paragraph (a) and to substitute it with:

“(c) after the commencement of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993 (Act No. 200 of 1993), has been convicted of [an offence] a crime specified in Schedule 1 of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 (Act No. 51 of 1977), whether in the Republic or elsewhere, and sentenced to imprisonment [for a period exceeding three months, or to a] without the option of a fine [as alternative thereto];”;”.

The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to the amendments as contained in the DST’s Addendum.

Clause 55:
DST noted the typographical error of “1997 (Act No. 51 of 1997)” and the substitution of “1977 (Act No. 51 of 1977)” on lines 34 and 35 of page 14.

The Committee agreed to these amendments as contained in the DST’s Addendum.

Clause 56:
The Chairperson noted that the Committee agreed to the amendments.

Memorandum on the Objects of the Science and Technology Laws Amendment Bill:
The following amendment to the Amendment Bill was accepted by the Committee:

On page 16, in the seventh line of the Memorandum on the Objects of the Science and Technology Laws Amendment Bill, to omit “the Constitution and”.

The Chairperson formally reported that the Committee approved the Amendment Bill with the proposed amendments contained in the Addendum handed out by the DST.

Shortlist of Candidates for appointment to Governing Board of National Research Foundation
Dr Molapo Qhobela, DST Deputy Director-General: Human Capital and Knowledge Systems, briefed the Committee on the criteria used to arrive at the shortlist of candidates for the Governing Board of the National Research Foundation (NRF). In addition to fulfilling the minimum requirements of the Act in the shortlist, the panel had taken into consideration the need to ensure gender, disability and race representation as well as the appropriate mixture and level of skills, experience, knowledge, aptitude, diligence and the stature required to lead the NRF. Both the letter and the spirit of the law had been followed in compiling the shortlist. All the statutory provisions for the necessary processes for the selection of members for the Board had been fulfilled.

Dr Quobela stated that the NRF Board served an important number of functions and that Board members should command the necessary respect from NRF management and stakeholders. The DST was fortunate in receiving an extremely strong list of nominees to serve on the NRF Governing Board. Approximately 90 nominations had been received and so the task of reducing them to a shortlist of less than 20 had been a challenging one. The proposed names were, in the view of the selection committee and the Minister, the ideal candidates to serve on the NRF Board.

The Chairperson stated that he was disappointed that the list did not incorporate three important factors. Firstly, it did not appear that anyone on the shortlist was adequately informed about the policy on indigenous knowledge systems that was being developed and in fact led by the NRF. Secondly, climate change was currently a major problem and it would be relevant to have someone on the Board who was informed on the topic. Thirdly, the shortlisted candidates did not appear to cater for “sport” which was problematic as the 2010 World Cup had proved the potential of “sport” to create unity.

Ms Shinn commented that the list of nominees included the names of very prominent scientists who had not been included in the shortlist. Ms Shinn understood that the shortlisting process might require some good candidates to be left off, for example Prof Jonathan Jansen and Prof Jeniffer Thomson who had not been included in the shortlist. However, she did not understand why Prof Errol Tyobeka had been included in the shortlist considering that he had been fired from his job last year and was not necessarily a scientist of repute. Surely there were other scientists of better stature and that had better standing with their peers in the research community than Prof Tyobeka?

Dr Quobela replied that he was not aware that Prof Tyobeka had been dismissed from his office. It would be necessary to contact Prof Tyobeka’s previous employer to verify whether or not Prof Tyobeka had been dismissed.

Mr Smith commented that the letter from the Minister of DST to the Speaker said that NRF Board members should be representative of a range of sectors. Was that requirement a legal injunction or was it just a normative statement by the Minister? If it was a legal injunction, then the shortlist presented by the DST did not appear to be compliant with that requirement. Had there been a conscious effort to select candidates so that each of the sectors was covered? Seven of the 16 shortlisted candidates did not have a science and technology background which was quite a high figure considering that the NRF was trying to promote science and technology.

Dr Quobela replied that while “broad representation” of each of the sectors listed by the Minister was a factor in the selection of candidates for the shortlist, there were other factors that also had to be taken into account at the same time. A conscious effort was made to shortlist candidates that were broadly representative of a list of sectors.

Dr Quobela would take the recommendations and concerns of the Committee to the Minister for consideration.

The Chairperson concluded that, having considered the shortlist of candidates for appointment to the NRF Governing Board, the Committee recommended that the House approve the shortlist with the necessary recommendations.

Committee Oversight: discussion of Draft Programme
Ms Shinn said it would be good to visit the “Origins Centre” at Witswaterstrand University.

The Chairperson said it would be important to.

The third week of oversight would be based in Cape Town.

Mr Smith said that there was a world-class animation studio near Mitchells Plain where top class movies were being made. It would be ideal if the Committee could visit the animation centre.

Ms Dunjwa noted that in future the Committee should also visit other provinces such as the Free State, the North West and the Eastern Cape.

The Chairperson agreed with the point.

Mr Smith asked if the Committee would try fit in some activity that related to the acid mine drainage issue.

Ms Shinn stated that she would like to visit the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) centres in Cape Town, Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal to see how they were operating.

The Chairperson said that all these considerations would be incorporated into the Oversight Programme, taking into account what would be possible in terms of time constraints.

Committee Report on Study Tour to Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project and SALT
The Committee adopted the report on the Committee’s tour to the “Square Kilometer Array” (SKA) project and the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) project in Sutherlands.

The meeting was adjourned.



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