The Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Science and Technology has resolved to have a workshop on Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in order to allow ordinary South Africans an opportunity to influence legislation implementation. The committee had earlier received a briefing on the Indigenous Knowledge Act from the department and heard that it was a transformative Bill.
Committee member, Ms Nompendulo Mkhatshwa, said a colloquium on the legislation to ascertain the views of society, especially ordinary people, was important. “The approach should be to protect the custodians of indigenous knowledge. We must protect those who turned out to be the most vulnerable in society: these are the elderly, and people in villages. We need to make sure that they are not exploited through this legislation,” Ms Mkhatshwa said.
She said it was important that there should be interaction among African communities, as many things will make sense if society worked collectively.
She called on the department to make sure that legislation was implemented with clear time frames, and that indigenous knowledge was properly integrated into Basic Education.
The Chairperson of the committee, Mr Philly Mapulane, agreed and said an informative session was needed. “A platform where everybody will be able to express their understanding of the legislation, but also on what constituted indigenous knowledge. We should create a national conversation around this subject,” Mr Mapulane said.
The committee had earlier heard that the legislation was intended to bring communities to participate on the knowledge economy, using their own knowledge.
A departmental representative told members that the key problem identified in the country was bio-piracy. “This is how knowledge from this country gets taken away and benefits of the knowledge do not accrue to the people. This could be by knowledge producers, it could be academics who use indigenous knowledge without acknowledging where that knowledge came from.”
The representative said the challenge with indigenous knowledge it that it is not documented, but also the owners of the knowledge do not know the monetary value of their knowledge. He listed traditional medicines, agriculture, and metallurgy as areas where indigenous knowledge is hardly documented. It was revealed that all provinces now have indigenous knowledge documentation centres. Members said the piece of legislation was exciting and that it needed to be implemented.
Committee member, Mr Bafuze Yabo, said it was necessary that the piece of legislation debunked the myth that Africans are incapable of inventing anything.
“IKS will assist us to preserve knowledge garnered by those before us. As a country, we have lost much of the commercial value of Rooibos. The department must assist to debunk certain cultural myths, this is important in the field of science,” Mr Yabo said.
It was revealed that the legislation could not be applied retrospectively on bio-piracy, but if there is continued use of IKS, Clause 30 of the Vienna Convention is operational – and stipulates that the user must enter into an agreement with the holders of indigenous knowledge.
It was also revealed that the owners of indigenous knowledge are always coerced into giving away their ownership of knowledge and intellectual property because they did not have financial muscle to challenge big companies in court. “The cruelty of the law is such that it is not about whether you are right, but whether you have resources to fight it out,” said the department’s representative.
By Sibongile Maputi
19 February 2020
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