Science and Technology Budget Review and Recommendations Report

Meeting report

The Chairperson thanked the Members and staff for being on time and four of the Members that were present at the start of the meeting decided to go through the draft to see if their recommendations and adjustments were made.

Consideration and adoption of the Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report (BRRR)
Mr C Mathale (ANC), referring to page two of the budget report, said he did not understand what Human Capital had to do with Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and asked why there was a comma only after the words "human capital".

Dr A Lotriet (DA) responded by saying a semi-colon meant something different to a comma, the STI abbreviation did not include the words "human capital, hence it was placed after the STI bracket.

The Chairperson agreed with Dr Lotriet saying "human capital" was not part of the STI abbreviation and that was why it had been written after it. He suggested they should remove the semi-colon and put a comma instead.

Dr Lotriet said she did not agree with the Chairperson because removing the semi-colon would give the sentence a new meaning.

The Members agreed to leave the sentence as it was.

Mr Mathale, referring to page eleven, asked if the last bullet point could be considered as an achievement, because they had aimed for a higher percentage. Since they did not achieve the planned percentage, it should not be considered as an achievement.

The Chairperson said he was also worried by that and suggested that the last bullet point should be removed.

Mr Mathale responded saying there was no need to take it out completely, but rather place it under another heading. Once the document became public, people will ask questions and say the targets and achievements were contradicting each other.

Dr Lotriet said the bullet point should be left out because the heading listed only the notable achievements.

Ms L Maseko (ANC) said the report could have the bullet point under the heading "observations", instead of "achievements".

Mr N Koornhof (ANC) moved for the adoption of the report.

Mr M Kekana (ANC) seconded the motion.

Committee Programme
The Chairperson said there was a new programme that was circulated by the Secretary. The Committee will be travelling to Sutherland on 24 November and will be back on 28 November. He asked the Members which mode of transport they preferred to use to travel.

Ms Maseko said she will not be able to go on the trip due to examinations.

Mr Koornhof responded saying the Committee should firstly look at its budget before deciding on how they want to travel.

The Chairperson agreed with Mr Koornhof.

The meeting was adjourned.