Chairperson, this weekend the EFF Students' Command will be hosting its third National Students Assembly in Bloemfontein, where a new leadership of the EFF students wing will be elected. The reason we have started with this point, is because the motive force behind the existence of the Students Command, is the inability of this government and department to provide free quality decolonised education.
It is no coincidence that Fees Must Fall began only a few months after the EFF Students Command was established in 2015. Since then, the EFF Students Command has been at the forefront of student and worker struggles at all campuses across the country. No matter what anyone from the ANC or government says anywhere, we still maintain that education is not free despite all the promises that were made, and this is the truth.
Let us all agree, Minister, that NSFAS does not work. Everyday, black students go to class hungry because they did not get their NSFAS food allowance on time. Students are squatting four to a single, and are forced to share learning material because NSFAS has not yet made the payments or because they were rejected for funding. It is seven months into the year, and according to your department's own statistics, there are 25 000 students in this country who have not received there NSFAS money.
But this department's failures in relation to NSFAS is a reflection of the broader failure to provide students the basics needed for them to maximise their academic potential and become productive members of society, the consequences of which we are seeing in the high dropout and failure rates of students at TVETs and universities. At institutions of higher learning we have a crisis of accommodation.
In 2018 there were over one million students at universities across the country, but at the same time there were only 130 O00 beds available. That means our universities cannot accommodate 15 percent of the student population. Because of this
accommodation crisis, student are sleeping in libraries, bathrooms, lecture rooms, study halls, and some are even sleeping under bridges. Female students are being raped, and are living under constant fear. We are proposing that instead of building new universities, Minister, we must expand the existing ones through building satellite campuses.
We must take these satellite campuses to other parts of the country, to reduce overcrowding in places like Joburg, Durban, and Cape Town. These satellite campuses must be linked with some industrial and productive activities in the area. Let's have Wits satellite campus for mining in Rustenburg and let's have a Univeristy of Pretoria satellite campus for natural and agricultural sciences in Enhlanzeni. Also, we must build these satellite campuses with proper accommodation, sports and recreational activities and proper security.
In the Central Business District, CBD, where we still have accommodation problems, municipalities must take over abandoned building, renovate them properly and turn them into decent proper accommodation. Minister, when the issue of free education
was discussed in Parliament, as the EFF we made concrete proposals, even before the commission on higher education finished its report, and we believe it is still relevant. Let's have 2,5% education levy on pension funds.
Let's increase the skills levy from 1% to 2% and the difference must be to fund free education; let's increase government allocation for higher education to 1.5% of the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, as other countries do across the world; let's have a business income levy of 4,9%. This could bring in more than a R150 billion, which we don't have today. Every student must receive two meals a day at institutions of higher learning. We need to establish free 24/7 clinics and employ counsellors at all institutions of higher learning.
We need to give every student a laptop and free learning materials. If a black student is pursuing doctoral studies, we must give them a conditional once of grant of R1 million. However, we are still not sure, why you are back as the Minister of Higher Education. We do not see what the President sees in you which make you appropriate for this position. You said you
hate students; you said, students must fall; you jailed Khaya; you made sure that Bonginkosi Khanyile was arrested and never received bail; a student died under your watch. We are going to continue to demand presidential pardon for Kanya Cekeshe and all other students which you have criminalised and excluded from the Higher Educational system, because of their in their involvement in the Fees Must Fall movement.
Before we reject this vote, Minister, we want to wish the Student Command a successful National Student Assembly. The EFF reject this budget and we reject you as the Minister of Higher Education and Training. [Applause.]