With government departments often plagued by governance issues, minister Blade Nzimande has called for a stronger focus on clean governance, socio-economic impact and transformation within the science, technology and innovation entities.
This comes on the back of one-on-one engagements recently held with the boards and exco of some of the department’s entities.
The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) has oversight of eight state-owned entities.
According to the DSTI, Nzimande engaged the leadership of the South African National Space Agency, National Research Foundation, Technology Innovation Agency and the Human Sciences Research Council.
The engagements follow a meeting in August, when the minister urged the chairpersons and CEOs of the DSTI’s entities to be firm in upholding good governance by fighting against corruption and wastage, and advancing transformation.
“Guided by the White Paper and Decadal Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation, and the ever-changing external environment, we will continue to make bold and decisive shifts in the focus areas of our department and its entities,” said Nzimande.
The minister further emphasised the importance of redefining the role of the DSTI and its entities, as well as increasing the national impact of its work.
“As part of this strategic repositioning, we recently adopted a new departmental mantra, which is ‘placing science, technology and innovation at the centre of government, education, industry and society’. The realisation of our mantra is dependent on several critical enablers, which include the need to significantly raise the scale and profile of our work.”
The DSTI highlights that the ministerial engagements seek to address the key issues emanating from the various performance reports, including the 2020-2025 end-term assessment, 2024/25 annual reports, and the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation’s 2024 online self-assessment tool.
“Consistent with this, the outcome of these engagements is intended to serve as feedback to the entities to inform the development of the 2026/27 annual performance plans (APPs) and if necessary, the revision of the 2025-2030 strategic plans.
“The outcome will also be incorporated into the second draft of the APPs, which are due to be submitted to the department by 16 January 2026.”
The department adds that further ministerial engagements will be held with the other entities, during the first half of 2026.
Share