[AstroNet] South Africa's SKA budget slashed

[Maciej Soltynski]

Focus 'still on telescope' despite funds cut
Business Day : 2010/11/10 06:49:14 AM 
by TAMAR KAHN

CAPE TOWN - Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor yesterday issued a statement reassuring taxpayers that SA's bid to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope was on track, despite R500m being cut from the science and technology department's space science budget last month.

The adjusted estimates of national expenditure published by the Treasury on October 27 show the space science budget for the fiscal year has been cut by R508,7m to R102,8m. 

The February budget allocated the programme R574m in 2009- 10, R611,5m in 2010-11, R659m in 2011-12 and R113,6m for 2012-13. 

"The rescheduling of 2010-11 expenditure to 2012-13 and beyond is a responsible planning response to ensure SKA benefits from evolving development and telescope redesign," Ms Pandor said. She was reacting to a statement issued last week by the Democratic Alliance's spokeswoman for science and technology, Marian Shinn, questioning the cuts. 

"As Ms Shinn has correctly indicated, the SKA is a 'large science' project. By the very nature of such projects, the flow of funds needs to be monitored constantly and, from time to time, the projected flow will be adjusted." 

Last week, the head of the bid, Dr Bernie Fanaroff, told Business Day that the SKA project was unable to spend money as fast as it had been allocated by the government, but was spending in line with its timelines and had not missed any deadlines. 

The initial stages of the project were to design and build a prototype for the MeerKAT demonstrator telescope. The MeerKAT had been delayed by a year and was now due to be finished in late 2014, after it was redesigned to align it with the dish design for the SKA telescope, which has now been finalised. Money would be spent at a faster rate once construction of the MeerKAT began in earnest, he said.

SA is bidding against Australia to host the SKA, which will be the world's biggest radio telescope.

A final decision was expected in the first quarter of 2012, said Dr Fanaroff. National Treasury spokesman Jabulani Sikhakane said in an e-mailed response to questions that the money saved this year on the SKA project "shall be considered for SKA expenditure plans under the medium- term expenditure framework". 

Ms Shinn said she took comfort from Dr Fanaroff's explanation. "It's nice to know, because taxpayers are putting a huge amount of money into supporting this bid and we want it to go ahead," she said.
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