I must start with the disclaimer that I am a new member of this committee. Much of what I know about this Bill has been passed on to me by my colleagues, but be that as it may, I think we can start off by saying that we do agree with the Minister that these are very important institutions. I think that is where the agreement ends, because unfortunately the position of government in this Bill is one that basically says, "to centralise is to improve - there are many instances where centralisation works".
We are not opposed to centralisation as a principle, but the problems of these very important institutions are myriad. They require vision, sensitivity, investment and real commitment and, as my colleague from the DA has said, these are supposed to be real community institutions. They are not supposed to be appendages of the leviathan. So, with that in mind, we undertook some work to look at what has been the track record of the department in terms of its own management, given that it now wants to take control of these institutions. Unfortunately, it's not a good one, because the Minister's own department is a good example of what can go wrong when you put all the power in one place.
Apart from all the problems he has had with his director-general, and the removal of that particular person, the exiting of top staff in the department and the problems at the sector education and training authorities, Setas, are further examples of where the tendency to direct power to the centre has failed. The problems in the Setas have increased rather than being dealt with. A similar problem is the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS - here, an institution that had a number of problems has gone from bad to worse as the Minister and his department appropriated power and responsibility from the board.
Our sense is that, while the intentions of government may be good and a genuine sense of wanting to make these colleges work is being verbalised, what is contained in this Bill is going to take us in exactly the opposite direction.
Another example would be the regularisation of the conditions of service of staff. We would agree with that, but why make these people employees of the state? You can make provision for the regularisation of conditions of service without making people employees of the state. What it means is that they would be taking instruction directly from Pretoria rather than from the constituency they are meant to serve. With all that in mind, we as Cope cannot support this Bill.