Deputy Speaker, the EFF family believes that the indigenous knowledge, which has been nurtured and evolved over the years, must not be exploited by multinational companies and must serve the indigenous people of South Africa.
That is why we support legislation that protects and promotes indigenous knowledge and the communities that over time, have acquired this knowledge, and use it to improve their lives.
However, despite this, we have doubts regarding this Bill and more specifically, the state's inability to manage indigenous knowledge in the best interest of our people. If one goes a bit deeper, one will see that instead of allowing local communities to derive an income from their knowledge, what will, in fact, happen is that the state itself will be able to sell off this knowledge to