House Chairperson, the ACDP views the Minister’s vision of a science-centred public-private partnership as attractive in principle, but we must judge the statement and government not by the elegance of policy language, but by its record of implementation.
The Minister correctly acknowledges that South Africa cannot rely on public funding alone, and that too many promising discoveries remain trapped between the laboratory and commercial application. But this is precisely where government’s argument becomes vulnerable. The problem is not a shortage of strategies, frameworks, and partnerships.
It is the persistent failure to translate them into measurable economic outcomes. For years, South Africans have been presented with ambitious plans for innovation, industrialisation, digital transformation, and commercialisation. Yet, unemployment remains devastatingly high, manufacturing capacity remains under pressure, and many small businesses and innovators struggle to access finance markets and state support.
The Minister speaks of shared infrastructure, blended financing, and agile intellectual property arrangements, but missing are the hard targets for jobs created, technologies commercialised, patents translated into enterprises, and South African innovations actually manufactured at scale. The ACDP believes that public-private partnerships must be mutually beneficial. In this regard, government departments must guarantee transparency, competitive procurement, measurable public returns, and parliamentary oversight.
The Minister rightfully highlights energy security, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and the digital economy as strategic priorities. The ACDP believes that these priorities require more than conferences and policy dialogues. They require decisive implementation, institutional accountability, and an environment in which entrepreneurs can actually build businesses.
Most importantly, innovation must not become the preserve of elite institutions, corporations, or technology hubs. In acknowledging the need to include townships and rural innovators, women, youth, and SMMEs, the ACDP expects government to demonstrate how these commitments will be funded, measured, and enforced.
As Kingdom Builders, the ACDP positions that South Africa does not need another grand innovation narrative, but it needs service delivery.
Science must move from laboratories into factories, from patents into products, and from policy documents into jobs and livelihoods.
Thank you, Honourable Chair.
