Is spending R18 billion on science and technology, as outlined in the department of science and technology's 10-year plan, justified against allocating funds to build houses, improve roads and fight crime?
The question is moot. The social effect of science and technology programmes is likely to be weighed in a review of spending by a new left-leaning ANC government.
The department is modelling its development-through-knowledge agenda in support of economic growth and social transformation on the reconstructions of Japan and Korea, or would-be knowledge economies such as Malaysia and India.
But success is possible only if knowledge is efficiently transformed into social and economic effect. For science to translate into technology and justify the diversion of enormous reserves from pressing challenges, industrial, education and science policies need to be aligned.
In reality, South Africa hasn't got a working strategy that matches enormous government spending on science and technology to the economic and industrial needs that could address unemployment, crime and global competitiveness.
The government's policies try to address the structural problems and challenges of the knowledge economy by creating new policies, public enterprises, and more red tape and regulations based on failed socialist paradigms.
While spending on skills development increases, innovations from universities have dried up because learning is not put to practical use. In addition, the government's entire science and technology agenda has failed to interest the youth, entrepreneurs or investors. Visit any of the incubators or the Innovation Hub in Pretoria, and you'll be hard pressed to find any start-ups or small businesses that stem from university research, or branched off from the science councils.
The same motivations tabled in parliament and the media to justify new schemes to support innovation were previously used to persuade the treasury to fund the instruments now earmarked for replacement. Such policies and instruments are then implemented through delayed and poorly executed processes.
Where is the private sector? The government's way of consulting is to talk and not to listen. Valuable insight from the people operating first-hand in the global innovation system is brushed aside.
Calls for public comments on new bills and policies are greeted with apathy by a public whose views are not taken seriously and do not in any way change the government's preset course of action. The rest of the world is profiting from increased openness: sharing knowledge and challenges between the various public, private and academic players, as well as opening markets and removing trade barriers.
Our natural heritage and biodiversity should be a key opportunity to attract local and global financial and skills investment. But we discourage international interest and make it economically unfeasible even for our own entrepreneurs. The weapon of choice: death by red tape.We will never be able to fix all our ills or address our problems by ourselves. We need the rest of the world.
We lose twice, first by failing to address very real challenges with limited taxpayer money, and second, by becoming more dependent on importing basic goods and services from former basket-case economies that embraced the opportunities of the global innovation marketplace. In doing so, we will never become a country that values science, and address its own challenges through innovation and collaboration.