Die Minister het reeds daarna verwys, maar vergun my die geleentheid om ook vir dr Bernie Fanaroff, 'n baanbreker van die Vierkante Kilometer Reeks, VKR, projek, vandag geluk te wens met die toekenning van die Nasionale Orde van Mapungubwe, silwer, wat aan hom op Vryheidsdag verleen is. Dr Fanaroff, ons salueer u! [Applous.] (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[Lastly, the Africa Institute of South Africa Act Repeal Bill seeks to repeal the Act and dissolve the institute, which would result in the incorporation of the institute in the Human Sciences Research Council. Although it currently appears to be the only solution to the problems with the institute, the incorporation seems to be suspicious. The process of incorporation started before Parliament passed the Bill. It would seem as if the decision to incorporate was taken first, after which reasons were sought to justify this. It makes one wonder if the institute's management problems could lie at the root of the dissolution.
In 1999 the salary package of the managing director, who was forced into early retirement, was a meagre R150 000. For his successor it was almost doubled immediately and within six years it was sextupled, after which he had to resign due to investigations into mismanagement. This salary package currently stands at R1,5 million. Over a period of 13 years the institute's annual budget has climbed from R3,2 million to R35,2 million and, despite a much larger staff complement, the output is not as desired. It has come to my knowledge that the institute's contribution to the medical aid fund of its pensioners has been reduced from 70% to 30% over the past two years, apparently by order of the department because of budget constraints. This is a meagre savings of R55 000 for this year, against a budget of about R40 million.
As with the Transnet pensioners, the pensioners of this institute now have to spend nearly all their pension on medical aid contributions. These are pensions that in 2012, without consulting the pensioners, were converted into annuity policies, thereby handing them over to the instability of the stock market. Minister, this is alarming. It is not in keeping with the status of your department.