honourable BMN Balfour, MP, at Parliament, Cape Town
18 May 2007
Madam Speaker
Deputy Speaker
Members of the Cabinet
Chairpersons and members of the portfolio and select committees
Members of Parliament
Distinguished guests
The Commissioner of Correctional Services, your executive management committee
and the rest of the staff
Ladies and gentlemen
Let me first acknowledge thousands of partners, officials, offenders and
members of the public that are gathered in five of our regions to watch this
speech on big screens today as part of our budget vote izimbizo. To all of you
in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West as
well as Free State and Northern Cape regions we are grateful for the time you
have made to join us as we outline our plans to contribute in building a safer
and a more secure South Africa.
Madam Speaker, Mr John Martin, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Athlone
Institute Trust said some people criticise government for all sorts of things
using various excuses for failures to stand up and do things for themselves. He
said, "Today this project of (the) Paarl community flies in the face of those
complaints. What we see here this morning is a community initiated government
and community partnership. Let it never be said that wardens and offenders are
twiddling their toes in our jails. Send them to Paarl to see what we did
together."
Madam Speaker, let me reiterate Mr Martin's words anyone doubting the
progressive achievements made by the Department of Correctional Services (DCS)
should go to Paarl and many other areas across the country "to see what we did
together" with communities. In Paarl through our officials and offenders we
constructed a complex of buildings from scratch to house the Athlone House of
Strength, a one-stop victim empowerment centre for abused women and children.
The project has contributed significantly in realising our new mandate of
correcting offending behaviour, rehabilitation, restoration of human relations
harmed by crime and also social re-integration of offenders.
Through our stakeholder relations and community outreach campaign we have
ensured that the Department of Correctional Sservices (DCS) is a visible
partner and is succeeding in blending our programme of corrections,
rehabilitation and social reintegration with national efforts to fight poverty,
underdevelopment and prevent crime.
Madam Speaker, we will always cherish the platform we are given in this
august House to give an account of our successes, challenges, interventions and
new plans for accelerating the delivery of correctional services in South
Africa.
When the people of South Africa spoke in their multitudes in 2004 giving the
African National Congress (ANC) an overwhelming majority to place the country
on a new and higher development path, we made a clear pledge to double our
efforts to ensure a better life for all. We are making headway. However,
overcoming the challenge of ensuring that South Africans including the elderly,
children and women are able to go about their normal life activities without
fear of abuse, crime and violence will be the ultimate test of a true freedom.
Many in our country laid down their lives and selflessly sacrificed to create
such a society and therefore we can never rest until this is attained and
sustained in our country.
Advancing corrections and punishment dialogue
The violent and aggressive crime spike apparently driven by organised
syndicates that we witnessed towards the end of 2006 and the massive media
coverage it received has played a critical role in people's overall assessment
of government commitment to fight crime with all that it has. We do understand
some people's anger, fear and emotional reaction to these developments. We
should hasten to state that these are not informed by a national objective
reality as reflected in crime statistics especially among major categories of
crime, but by individual experiences and circumstances. Aligned with this kind
of reaction we are observing the resurgence of a more conservative punitive
paradigm in the public discourse. We believe this should be faced with sober
and logic minds while also demonstrating empathy to many victims of crime.
Overwhelming evidence from best international research projects shows that the
"lock and throw the key away" perspective of dealing with crime only compounds
the situation by breeding more crime and repeat offending.
I wish to repeat former State President Nelson Mandela's words of wisdom
shared while officially opening the eMthonjeni Youth Centre at the
Baviaanspoort Correctional Centre in Gauteng.
"Government will not tolerate crime. However, it does not mean that we have
to ignore offenders. They are part of our society's problem and rejecting them
is not going to solve the problem of crime. They are human beings too, they are
our brothers, sisters, our sons and daughters who have disappointed us. They
have the right to a chance to unlock their potential to better themselves."
We should all learn to appreciate that the visionary South Africans made a
profound statement of policy as far back as 1955 when the Freedom Charter was
adopted saying, "Imprisonment shall aim at re-education, not vengeance".
We are not oblivious to the fact that some of the crime perpetrators are
becoming increasingly violent and aggressive. We believe that without doubt
those deserve incarceration in the interest of public safety for a longer time
if not for the rest of their lives. No one can reverse a crime already
committed instead we should all be investing in protecting the next victim by
breaking the cycle of crime and reducing re-offending rates in our country.
Profile of DCS
The Department has been allocated a R10,74 billion for the 2007/08 financial
year to implement its key programmes aimed at contributing in ensuring a just
and a safer South Africa through incarceration of offenders, correction of
offending behaviour, rehabilitation and social re-integration of offenders. We
keep in our 241 facilities of different sizes about 158 859 offenders, 445 079
of whom are awaiting trial detainees with women constituting only 2,1% of the
total offender population (DCS IMS â January 2007). We also have over 60 000
parolees and probationers who are doing their sentence terms under community
corrections. This massive operation is a labour intensive exercise currently
resourced by 41 000 officials nationally. Depending on their classification,
offenders are progressively exposed to numerous corrections and rehabilitation
programmes which are carried out within our facilities like factories,
workshops, classrooms, farms, etc, or within communities as an integral part of
blending our functions with mainstream government programmes of fighting
poverty and under development.
In many respects we are able to produce enough furniture, tools as well as
food like pork, eggs, milk, bread and vegetables to cover our institutional
needs while in cases of over supply we donate food to local communities as a
contribution in fighting poverty. Thousands of families across the country can
bear testimony to this. The national resources allocated to us are optimally
used for ensuring the best value for all South Africans. Most of these details
about the functioning of this department are not know by many people and in
many instances the fact that notorious serial killers, rapists and abusers are
no longer able to carry out their acts of terror is taken for granted without
acknowledging continuous good work done by this Department.
The attainment of six distinctions by a juvenile offender Sifiso Zulu in
Durban Westville Correctional Centre in KwaZulu Natal and a bursary offer by
the South African Institute for Chartered Accounts to study for BCom at the
University of Cape Town is one in many. This inmate was sentenced to six years
and served about half of his sentence before qualifying for parole in January
this year.
Renewing our pledge
Madam Speaker, the financial year 2006/07 will go down in our history as a
watershed year with numerous positive milestones in our quest to build a
correctional system rated as among the best in the world. On the other hand we
also received wake up calls for intensifying internal controls and strengthen
our compliance drive as we double our efforts to deliver on the plans of the
third democratic government before the end of this term in 2009.
When I assumed the responsibility of leading the Department in 2004, I
committed to this house to spare no effort in ensuring that the Department
makes a difference to perpetrators in our care and also victims of crime. I
warned against a false sense of security expected by people clamouring for a
retributive approach to corrections. I again committed my Department to
ensuring effective implementation of a multi pronged strategy for dealing with
overcrowding in order to create an enabling environment for effective
correction and rehabilitation of offenders.
Together with the Deputy Minister, Ms Loretta Jacobus, we will give the
House an overview on how far we have gone since those pledges were made giving
a particular focus on the previous financial year while also outlining the
interventions we will make over the remaining period of our brief by the
President.
Creating an enabling environment for corrections and rehabilitation
Foremost on our minds and hearts is the challenge of overcrowding that
creates unsuitable condition for the implementation of corrections and
rehabilitation programmes. It should always be noted that the challenge of
overcrowding is an international phenomenon that will probable be with us for a
number of years as no single player in a society can ever resolve the challenge
in any sustainable manner.
I am happy to announce that the implementation of our eight-pronged strategy
has begun to give dividends. Over the past six years we have consistently
reduced overcrowding by 4,77% per year with the past two years (2005/06)
reaching 15,72% and 10% reduction rates respectively. The fact that we have 38%
more offenders than our bed spaces remains unacceptable, but South Africa's
international rating dropped by 14 places on the list of most congested prisons
in terms of the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS). The decline is
by design and with greater awareness and stronger integration of partners of
the criminal justice system and other civil society partners, we are committed
to sustain these trends in the interest of public safety.
Also in six years we improved our bed spaces by 14,45% through renovations,
limited expansions and re-commissioning. Given the reduction of overcrowding I
have alluded to earlier the decrease of awaiting trial detainees by 22,02% and
the next increase of offenders by 3,6% over the past six years, I can safely we
are winning the battle for now.
The National Council on Correctional Services (NCCS) led by Judge Siraj
Desai, and the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons (JIP) led by Judge Nathan
Erasmus, have been pivotal in ensuring a continuous improvement in correctional
services and in strengthening integrated governance. I take my hat off these
two outstanding judges and their teams for their incisive and visionary
interventions, without which we would have been poorer in service delivery.
Today our co-operation with judicial officials in particular magistrates has
reached new heights especially after a road show that covered at least four
provinces where we shared knowledge, experience and strategies for addressing
challenges facing the corrections system of South Africa. The positive spin
offs of this co-operation have started to trickle in as we observe an
improvement in the placement of offenders who pose no danger to the society
under correctional supervision in line with many instruments contained in the
Criminal Procedure Act and the Correctional Services Act. Jacobus and I will
shed more light on these issues.
The current overall positive trend in the reduction of overcrowding is
facing a significant threat over the next few years. A changing profile of
offender and awaiting trial inmate population who are increasingly incarcerated
for aggressive and violent crimes, poses a real challenge as they occupy more
bed spaces, more often and for a longer period. This trends cuts across women,
youth, children and adult male offenders. This trend will have significant
policy and strategy implications to the Department and the whole of the
criminal justice system if the current trends are sustained over the next five
to 15 years. With mandatory sentences the category of offenders serving 10 to
15 years increased by over 12% over the last six years, from 45% in 2000 to 57%
of the total offender population in 2006. A similar trend is also observed
among other categories serving longer sentences including lifers. Alone the
Department cannot provide solutions to these anticipated long-term problems. I
therefore appeal to parents to be the first line of defence against a continued
bleeding of our society due to crime.
Following a series of complaints from offenders and their families last year
about our parole system, I ordered an audit as well as interventions to
eliminate backlogs with regard to the implementation of the legislative
instruments for early releases. The audit found over 19 584 backlog cases
across the country. These then were taken through the Case Management
Committees (CMCs) and the Correctional Supervision and Parole Boards (CSPB) for
accelerated attention and consideration. The improvement made after the audit
is commendable as the backlog was slashed by 49,16% to 9 957 cases which are
still receiving special attention from overstretched CMCs and CSPB. We will
keep track of these development and institute quarterly reviews to ensure that
no backlogs are accumulated again.
We have also noted with appreciation the portfolio committee's experiences
when it visited the southern Cape last week. I have been informed of those
challenges with delayed the processing of applications for parole. I have
ordered an intervention by our regional management during a standing meeting I
had on Tuesday this week and I will keep this House informed through the
portfolio committee and select committee.
The social re-integration programme continues to grow in leaps and bounds.
The nearly two-year old SPB work is gaining the necessary momentum. During the
2006/07 financial year we started with the recruitment of the
vice-chairpersons. The initiative is aimed at strengthening community and
victim participation in our processes of granting parole to deserving
offenders. These community leaders of good standing ensure that government
commitments to participatory governance is realised. Regrettably the
recruitment drive only netted less than the desirable response of the requisite
52 vice-chairpersons. We are gearing our selves for a massive awareness drive
and co-operation with key partners like the portfolio committee and the select
committee to ensure that people of high standing and integrity are appointed to
fill this gap currently closed by our officials.
The work of CSPB will be further assisted by the intensification of the
campaign, Operation Masibambisane that is integrated into the social
re-integration programme.
Management of Awaiting Trial Detention (MATD) system
The Cabinet in 2006 mandated the Department of Correctional Services to lead
the project of re-engineering the MATD system in South Africa. The brief goes
beyond just addressing congestion of facilities to ensuring that all provisions
of the Constitution, legislation and international protocols applicable to
un-sentenced inmates are applied. DCS is leading an inter-departmental task
team composed of representatives of justice and constitutional development,
South African Police Services (SAPS), home affairs and social development to
drive the programme. We have also established an embryonic chief directorate
and contracted a project manager to drive the development of appropriate
policies and procedures, identification of correctional centres for use as
pilot Remand Detention Facilities (RDFs) in each region, as well as the
development and implementation of a synchronised cluster programme of action
aimed at meeting short to long term strategic needs in the management of
awaiting trial detainees. Some of the areas to be seriously explored include
electronic tracking of Awaiting Trial Detentions (ATDs) and setting up of an
integrated information management system for the justice crime prevention and
security cluster.
Gearing the Department for implementing the seven-day working week
Madam Speaker, it is with a great sense of satisfaction that I introduce to
you and the House our new National Commissioner, Mr Vernie Petersen who brings
with him a wealth of experience, knowledge and wisdom about correctional
services and our partners. He had been our Regional Commissioner in
KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng as well as our corporate services chief deputy
commissioner. He has a long history of activism for social justice and
development. He started his career by helping the weak and the vulnerable in
our society as a social worker, before venturing into various leadership
positions including that of an advisor to the former Minister of Social
Development. He is a soft-spoken tough cookie with brains of a genius, a heart
of steel and a thick skin that will not crack even under any heat. I believe I
am echoing the feeling of the whole Cabinet when I say I have absolute
confidence in his abilities as a leader, a manager, an agent of transformation
and a firm decision maker. I wish to assure you that Mr Petersen will pick up
the reigns of comrade Mti and smoothly proceed from where he left.
I cannot fail to acknowledge the legacy of Former Commissioner Linda Mti,
who had contributed immensely in building a formidable team of executive and
senior managers and gave a clear direction through championing the development
of the White Paper and subsidiary policies, procedure and programmes in the
Department. The allegations of improper conduct with regarding to the
procurement processes should be rejected and laid to rest. The public service
commission had declared in their report that they found 'nothing untoward'
about him. On behalf of the leadership and management of DCS, I wish Mr Mti the
best in his new venture and career.
I also wish to thank the former acting Commissioner, Sis Jabu Sishuba and
her executive management colleagues for having ensured a smooth transition and
continued service delivery over the past five months.
The Department has surpassed its employment target of 8 311 additional
employees as part of the implementation of the seven-day working week scheduled
to kick off in April 2008. The last group of the massive recruitment drive is
currently undergoing a learnership programme in preparation for their
deployment at two training colleges of correctional services, Zonderwater and
Kroonstad. In addition to thousands of new recruits we created 752 new
positions as part of the ongoing alignment of the structure with the
requirements of the White Paper. This resulted in a fairly constant vacancy
rate of 8%. This year 341 additional posts will be created and filled while
also reducing the vacancy rate.
Other interventions aimed at ensuring that the requisite institutional
capacity is instituted include the following:
* The adoption of an integrated human resources strategy that seeks to
ensure the recruitment and retention of scarce skills such as doctors,
pharmacists, nurses, educationists and psychologists. In consultation with the
Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), the Department of
Health and the National Treasury a new dispensation for health workers as a
scarce skill was finalised, costed and the first phase of nurses funded for
implementation.
* On the labour relations management front the Department has a cause for
celebration as well. This follows the successful implementation of relationship
building by objectives model that was part of the settlement of a protracted
labour dispute that characterised correctional services in yesteryears. Two
Minister's Labour Consultative Forum meetings were held. Regional negotiations
culminated in the signing of the relationship-building objective (RBO) by all
regions creating a conducive environment for taking labour relations to a new
level that goes beyond bread and butter issues.
* We know for sure that our personnel are our greatest resource for the
delivery of correctional services which are rated among the best in the world
with a commitment to excellence and integrity. We have taken steps to ensure
appropriate investment in our personnel through the following programmes:
* Institution of the job refinement programme. The programme is aimed at giving
appropriate recognition to the corrections profession as this function has
graduated from being a mere masculine function of opening and locking gates of
offenders to a more dynamic function that embodies critical elements of
counselling, coaching, development and protection of offenders while also
facilitating community and family contact for sustainable social re-integration
on release. The project due for completion during the course of the financial
year is expected to assist in the review of conditions of service for all our
officials. We dare not fail on this because our mission of ensuring that every
correctional official is a rehabilitator would be a pie in the sky.
* The implementation of the second phase of the interim promotion
arrangement negotiated with the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru)
as well as the Public Service Association (PSA) was successful. The project
benefited 1 857 officials at salary levels five and six who subsequently
progressed to the next levels. These developments are expected to improve staff
morale and overall service delivery.
* Other interventions include: the institution of the HIV and Syphilis
Prevalence Survey for helping us design a supportive environment for HIV
positive and AIDS suffering officials, affirmation of women particularly in
management and promotion of an organisational culture that is aligned to our
new ethos.
* On preparing our managers and staff for championing the implementation of
our new direction, we trained 91% of our 165 senior management service members
on change management, 933 frontline officials on living the principles of Batho
Pele "people first" as well as 600 middle managers, 230 of whom have already
received certificates for completing a management development programme run in
partnership with Tshwane University of Technology (TUT).
* Increasing the staff complement from 36 311 in the 2005/06 financial year
to 41 406 in 2006/07 with a target of reaching 45 674 by the end of 2009/10
financial year, a 25,79% increase and provision of additional 9 363 jobs within
five years.
* Conscious of our obligation to contribute to the Accelerated and Shared
Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), we engaged 500 unemployed
graduates for gaining critical experience for their marketability last year and
also engaged 1 500 more in January 2007.
Madam Speaker, I believe this House and our nation can see that I am not
just upbeat about this Department's performance for nothing. We can longer
behave like fishes that lay a thousand eggs and keep quiet. I promise you that
this year we will be 'a hen' that lays one egg and makes sufficient noise for
the world to know.
Infrastructure development programme
Physical security and information technology are two of the key pillars of
our minimum security standards policy we have approved and partly implemented
in the previous financial year. We had announced in this house the
implementation of the state of the art biometric access control and closed
circuit television (TV) monitors in 66 correctional centres inclusive of 36
centres of excellence. That programme has been implemented successfully and
launched in July 2006. We have allocated R100 million per year over the Medium
Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for the rollout of the biometric access
control system with closed circuit TV monitors to cover the remaining
facilities. These will also include x-ray security scanners. In addition,
security fencing with closed circuit television monitors and motion detectors
is being implemented in high risk facilities nationally at a cost of nearly
half a billion rand. We take issues of security very seriously hence the
allocation of an annualised budget increase of 194,6% for equipment over the
MTEF period.
The construction of new generation correctional facilities is a mega
infrastructure development programme identified as one of the top priorities of
correctional services on which we will focus our energies during the current
medium term expenditure framework. The construction of the Kimberly
Correctional Centre is progressing well. The report of a transaction adviser on
the remaining centres has been received and discussed with the National
Treasury. We have agreed to go ahead with constructing five of the additional
centres following a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. We will now proceed
to the next phase of appointing project managers with National Treasury
considering footing the Bill of the project managers.
Partnerships for effective service delivery improvement
The government has made it absolutely clear that ensuring sustainable
development, protection the countryâs citizenry and ensuring a better life for
all can never be the government's sole responsibility. In my inaugural budget
vote speech as Minister of Correctional Services I had extended an invitation
for South Africans, individually and in their respective formations, to join me
in taking corrections to unprecedented heights of effectiveness in crime
prevention and in creating a safer South Africa. I am proud to announce that
many South Africans and their formations have come to the party. We have begun
to build enduring partnership with various players within and outside of
government including the following:
* Government clusters and departments as well as its agencies like the
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Special
Investigation Unit (SIU).
* Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like the Open Society Foundation
(OSF) and our traditional partners like National Institute for Crime Prevention
and Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO), South African National Council on
Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (SANCA), Khulisa and the President's Awards.
* Other new partnerships are with the Business Against Crime (BAC), Moral
Regeneration Movement (MRM) and academic institutions like TUT, to mention but
a few.
These relationships are helping in improving service delivery, promoting our
democracy and accountability, mobilising resources and also serving as a
sounding board for continuous improvement of correctional services delivery in
its quest to be among the best in the world.
Our partnership with Business Against Crime (BAC) and CSIR involves the
development of a cutting edge technology strategy that will help DCS deliver
quality services on a 24:7:365 bases for all beneficiaries. That strategy is
expected to be finalised this year to provide a guiding framework and ensure
coherence of various current and future information technology and
communication related initiatives. They are also assisting with sharpening our
corporate services.
The OSF has donated R3 million for conducting a three year evaluation
project aimed at assessing the implementation of the Correctional Services Act
(Act 111 of 1998) in a sample of management areas. The researcher will monitor
and evaluation the following elements of the Act: incarceration conditions,
oversight functions, protection and promotion of human rights culture within
the facilities, centre management, functioning of the correctional supervision
and parole boards, healthcare, rehabilitation and social re-integration of
offenders. The panel of experts conducting the research and the evaluation will
give periodic reports to correctional services in order to sharpen the
implementation or even consider amendments to the legislative and regulatory
framework to ensure pragmatism. The interventions incorporate the transfer of
skills for using the new assessment tools widely in correctional services when
the project is concluded. There is a joint task team that drives the
implementation of the project.
We have reached an agreement with the MRMs Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa to
drive campaigns aimed at strengthening the family unit, community structures
and our social fibre as the basis of a stronger society. A stronger society
that is rooted in self respect, appreciation and love inflicts less violence
and crime against itself and when the campaign takes root correctional services
will reap the benefits. During the Corrections Week celebrations in September
2006 we launched a one-million signature campaign that is aimed at not just
building greater awareness of the societal responsibility for correcting the
offending behaviour, rehabilitation and social re-integration of offenders but
to ensure public and stakeholders ownership of the responsibility of building a
safer and a more secure South Africa.
Driven by our belief that the site of service delivery is a local
municipality with provincial governments also putting their shoulder behind the
wheel, we adopted a campaign called Operation Masibambisane as a platform for
co-operation with local municipalities, provincial governments, the NGO sector,
faith-based organisations (FBOs) and other civil society structures. We met
with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), traditional
leadership structures, ordinary business people and professionals who all
responded with great enthusiasm to the call for a helping hand. Some of the
manifestations include medical doctors and social workers who have volunteered
to assist us in the Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga regions.
What we should not tire of telling is that the task of transforming a
correctional system of a country with such a history as South Africa can never
be a smooth sailing or a few years programme. A correctional system can only be
as good as a country can be. Therefore, a national call sounded by the
President for a reconstruction of the soul should be said over and over again.
In a context of increasing dysfunctional families and societies, the
degradation of a social fibre and the fading of moral and ethical values, a
development that is compounded by levels of poverty and underdevelopment,
correctional services cannot hope to succeed. We plan to intensify our role
within communities and also in mobilising the civil society behind the
anti-crime campaign driven by the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS)
cluster.
Building an ethical and a secure correctional system
The elimination of fraud and corruption is one of the key success indicators
in our endeavours to transform Correctional Services. To deal with this
scourge, Correctional Services has partnered with the Special Investigation
Unit (SIU - Cobra) and the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions) and
has succeeded in uncovering medical aid corruption resulting in the recovery of
R22 million in the previous financial year. Emanating from the Jali Commission
recommendations, the Scorpions arrested 120 persons as part of investigations
into medical aid fraud amounting to R45 million.
A departmental task team with regional representatives was established to
accelerate the implementation of the disciplinary recommendations of the Jali
Commission that were tabled last year. Over 100 officials were investigated by
the Departmental Investigation Unit (DIU). The Code Enforcement Unit (CEU)
concluded 60 hearings and registered a commendable conviction rate of 92%. All
Jali Commission related cases are expected to be finalised by November 2007 in
terms of internal disciplinary processes.
Fighting fraud is a complex operation and to close all gaps we trained 828
managers and officials on ethics across the country including 20 trainers who
will drive the rollout of the training to reach the rest of the officials in
correctional services. Our Compliance Improvement Plan (CIP), which focuses on
improved internal controls will also result in a smaller window of opportunity
for those hell bent on committing fraud and enable us more easily to detect
such fraud.
Even in this instance we need to note, it takes two to tango. If members of
the public, businesses, NGOs, FBOs and other role players could refuse to play
the 'corruption and fraud ball' with officials, our institutions and society
would be purer.
Priorities for 2007/08 and anchor projects
The Department has adopted six priorities and five key projects that we
commit to deliver on effectively over the next two years and beyond. These are
informed by both triumphs and tribulations of the past few years as we strive
to turn this huge Department around. Besides the achievements I have outlined,
there were a number of challenges identified by our selves first and
acknowledged by the Auditor-General (AG) and the portfolio committee. These
included challenges of compliance with government's regulatory framework,
violence and incidents of aggression within our facilities, escapes as well as
poor public understanding of correctional services and its strides. Other
challenges include delays in the construction of the new generation
correctional centres and the mammoth task of rolling out the finalised model
for the management of the offender life cycle, the offender rehabilitation
path.
The identified six priority areas of focus are underpinned by our service
delivery improvement plan that entails five projects. These include improving
communication of our strategic direction, creating enabling environment for
rehabilitation, enhancing good governance and compliance, improving our
integrated planning and performance reporting, enhancing our external
partnership and expediting the social re-integration programme. The service
delivery improvement plan that underpins these priorities contains are:
* phased implementation of the social re-integration action plan
* expediting the building and upgrading of facilities
* development of an appropriate remand detention management system
* implementation of the seven-day working week and the job refinement
projects
* phasing in of the implementation of the offender rehabilitation path.
In essence these are not entirely new projects, but an affirmation the
strategic decisions taken earlier are correct and therefore focus should be on
implementation. These will inform the allocation of resources over the
remaining years of the third democratic government and will indeed take
correctional services to a higher bar in delivering services.
Conclusion
Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge that the South African society
has begun to appreciate corrections as part of the mainstream in the process of
fundamental transformation of our country. We just need to be more proactively
and turn around the recent wave of negative headlines for positive ones. We
will focus our energies on ensuring that every important role player is
appropriately informed of the Department's vision, mission, objectives and
interventions as well as challenges around which societal energies should be
mobilised as we seek to build a caring correctional system that effectively
contributes in building a better life for all in a much safer and secure South
Africa.
I again wish to thank all our partners for their unwavering support during
the course of the year. My gratitude also goes to the Deputy Minister, the
National Commissioner, the executive management committee as well as the rest
of the staff for their vision and resilience to soldier on under sometimes very
trying conditions. I also salute our regions, offenders and members of the
public that have made it their business to come and engage us in various
izimbizo held around the country today. We will always cherish your
contributions as we march together towards a correctional system you envisage
for our beloved country, South Africa.
Last but not least, my family which is always behind me at all times with
love and support. I will always be indebted to you for that.
Madam Speaker and honourable members, I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
18 May 2007
Source: Department of Correctional Services (http://www.dcs.gov.za/)
