Representatives of POPCRU
Representatives of PSA
National Commissioner
Mr Tom Moyane
Chief Deputy Commissioners
Regional Commissioners
Deputy Commissioners
Other members of the correctional services family.
It is, indeed, a pleasure to address this first Ministerial Consultative Forum with Organised Labour, since my appointment as Minister of Correctional Services on 12 June 2012. On 31 August 2012, I was invited to address the POPCRU Central Executive Committee Meeting at St. George’s Hotel in Tshwane.
During my tenure in government over the past 18 years, first as KZN MEC for Transport (1994-2004), Premier of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal (2004-2009) and national Minister of Transport (2009-2012), we have always enjoyed a frank, and constructive, relationship with organised labour. At the POPCRU meeting on 31 August 2012, the President of POPCRU stated that POPCRU’s relations with the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) were the worst.
We want to discuss every problem correctly and timeously. Let us continue with the frank, and constructive, relationship we have always had with organised labour. Since my appointment to Correctional Services on 12 June 2012, I have emphasised to management that we must resolve all outstanding issues which negatively affect our relationship with staff and organised labour. It's therefore important to emphasise that our line managers, at the various Management Areas, need to ensure that the lines of communication remain open, at all times, through mediums such as the union-management forums.
These forums must take place, without fail, on a monthly basis. We need to ensure that localised employer-employee challenges are resolved at source, and these forums provide a critical platform. I am informed that we are making progress in this regard. As Executing Authority, one of my priorities is to strengthen relationships, through regular engagements, with recognised organised labourin the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) such as POPCRU and PSA. As government, we appreciate, and recognise, the role played by Organised Labour in supporting the transformation agenda of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) Cluster.
In terms of its founding mandate, this Ministerial Consultative Forum provides us with an opportunity to engage, meaningfully, on strategic policy matters that affect the organisation, as well as to share critical information in the interests of the organisation and its employees.
On 25 January 2013, a riot at a prison in Venezuela, South America, resulted in the death of 61 inmates. On 23 and 24 January, 10 inmates were injured in two fights between rival gangs at Pollsmoor Correctional Centre in Cape Town. On 22 January, an inmate was seriously injured, and 12 others sustained other injuries, after a gang fight at the Rustenburg Correctional Centre. On 18 January, a gang-related fight at St. Albans Correctional Centre in the Eastern Cape resulted in the death of three awaiting-trial detainees and injuries to 64 detainees.
Approximately 2,083 awaiting-trial detainees are currently detained at St. Albans, with some of them detained for longer than five years. On 16 January, a Correctional Official was attacked and stabbed by three inmates at the Groenpunt Correctional Centre. One of the offenders grabbed the official and held him by his hands. Another offender started stabbing him, while the third was busy hitting him with a padlock. Other officials intervened, and used necessary force, which resulted in the three offenders sustaining injuries.
One offender later died in hospital. On 7 January, inmates at Groenpunt instigated a riot where approximately 1,900 maximum offenders (the majority serving life and long sentences) are incarcerated and who, in the courts opinion, pose a significant risk to the public of serious harm by the commission of further specified offences.
We have declared 2013 as “The Year of the Correctional Official”. As stated in the White Paper on Corrections, corrections is a multi-faceted profession which requires knowledge of social work, psychology, nursing, pharmacology, health and theology. The ideal Correctional Official should embody the values that DCS hopes to instill in the offender, as it is this official who is to assist, and facilitate, the rehabilitation processes of the offender. An attitude of serving with excellence, a principled way of relating to others and, above all, a just and caring attitude are essential ingredients of the behaviour of a Correctional Official.
A caring attitude requires a principled display of qualities such as integrity, honesty and sound work practices; adherence to the departmental code of conduct; and general disassociation with all forms of corruption and unethical conduct. There are more risks for a Correctional Official than most jobs. The population that they work with in the prison system is much more dangerous than the general public. Although education, and training, are required to work in this environment, just one little mistake can be very risky for a Correctional Official. A Correctional Official prepares inmates for successful rehabilitation, re-entry and reintegration.
From 16th to 18th January 2013, the DCS held its Lekgotla in KwaZulu-Natal where we reviewed our vision, mission, values, strategic goals and strategic objectives. As stated at the Lekgotla, history teaches us one clear lesson: freedom will not last unless it’s coupled with order. Order can exist without freedom, but freedom can never exist without order.
That freedom and order may co-exist, it is essential that freedom should be exercised under authority and order should be enforced by authority. The enforcement of order should always be guided by the principle of legality, necessity and proportionality. The Prisons and Reformatories Act, Act 13 of 1911, introduced a formal prison system in South Africa 102 years ago. The interim Constitution of the country, introduced in 1993, embodied the fundamental rights of the country’s citizens, including that of offenders.
This resulted in the introduction of a human rights culture into the correctional system, and the strategic direction of DCS is to ensure that incarceration entails safe, and secure, custody under humane conditions.
I wish to take this opportunity to update the forum on progress being made in respect of other matters:
Translation of Group 1 of 2008: The department has completed the necessary due diligence in this regard. The due diligence, involved, among others:
- Verifying the number of officials affected, per region, by this;
- Inspecting each of their files to determine whether the necessary paper trail, confirming their successful completion of the Learnership existed; and
- Tracking their pay progression, over the years, to determine if there were gaps.
All the above has been concluded. Officials have been placed on correct pay bands, and outstanding backdated payments have also been effected.
Translation of Group 2 of 2008: In December 2012, the department concluded a similar due diligence exercise in respect of this group of affected officials. The relevant team is currently evaluating the audit report in terms of its findings and recommendations, before advising on the course of action going forward. Naturally, we are cognisant of the need to expedite resolution of this matter without any undue delay.
Phase II OSD for Artisans: The department finalised payment to the affected officials in this regard, following a similar audit process. Absorption of Learners: The department has to date absorbed all Learners who meet the criteria as set out in contract positions, pending appointment into permanent positions based on our operational needs. 3% Pay Progression: The department has determined the number of officials affected, as well as the shortfall due. We have activated correspondence with the Department of Public Service and Administration to adjust the notches correctly so that outstanding payments can be paid.
Control Room Operators: Consultation is currently taking place, amongst senior management, on the need to send these officials to our colleges, so that we can facilitate their absorption into the mainstream organisation. Once again, senior officials are handling this matter on an urgent basis to fast track resolution. Uniform: The benchmarking exercise with South African Police Service (SAPS) is on-going.
We have also deployed a team to conduct an audit of the available stock at our Witbank Depot. Lastly, we are in the process of recruiting a Project Manager who, together with the current Project Team, will handle this issue on a dedicated basis. It must be emphasised that the outstanding issues require that, collectively, we need to be more innovative in finding solutions. We cannot afford to maintain the status quo. We need to look at issues from different perspectives, as they are dynamic. A collective realisation is required that we are duty-bound to the officials in DCS to find long-lasting solutions, which will give meaning to our clarion call that this is the Year of the Correctional Official.
This clarion call must heighten our collective sense of obligation to our Correctional Officials. It will ring hollow if we carry on business as usual. I, therefore, call on all of us to find speedy, long-lasting solutions to the following critical issues, among others: 1. Implementation of Phase II of OSD for all the categories within the Department; 2. The recruitment and retention of critical skills such as Educators, Artisans, Doctors, Psychologists and Social Workers, so that we realise our core mandate. Among the proposed solutions in this regard is the extension of the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) Resolution to DCS Educators; 3. Promotion Policy; 4. An appropriate shift model for the Department; 5. An agreement on the averaging of hours in line with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act; and 6. A resolution on the backdated overtime claim issue.
This Ministerial Consultative Forum needs to set in motion processes, and frameworks, which will facilitate the speedy resolution of all these matters, and others which may emerge, going forward. We are passionate about galvanising understanding, and support, for our transformative agenda from prisons to corrections, and preparing those of our offenders who need to get ready to be reintegrated as functional members of society. We have 243 correctional centres operational throughout the country.
These were built over the past 100 years or so. Many of them were built when corrections, and rehabilitation, were unheard of, and, therefore, they have severe shortcomings in terms of design and structure. When the offender population bulged during the second part of the previous century, the then government built a number of large correctional centres, such as Pollsmoor, that allowed for bulk detention but with very little attention to humane detention. The department, however, managed to overcome many of the challenges, and, progressively, started to introduce remedies and turnaround strategies.
One such is new designs for correctional centres, especially as the emphasis started to shift from imprisonment to corrections, and rehabilitation, post 1994. The period since then has seen the review of policies, the introduction of new legislation on more than one occasion, the development of the White Paper on Corrections, the introduction of unit management as a concept aimed at ensuring greater control over smaller pockets of offenders and remand detainees, and many other improvements.
DCS is a client department, and incarcerates offenders as per order of the court. South Africa is currently ranked number one in Africa, and 9th in the world, in terms of prison population, with approximately 160, 000 inmates. Of this, about 30% constitute awaiting-trial detainees. Since my appointment, overcrowding in correctional centres is one of our key priorities.
To this end, the department hosted a colloquium on overcrowding, alternative sentencing and the white paper on remand detention on 19 and 20 November 2012, which was attended by all relevant stakeholders including representatives from the judiciary. The recommendations of the colloquium are currently being considered for implementation. That our offender population has remained constant, whether you remove pass laws, group areas or apartheid laws, should make us search more urgently for answers to the high prison population in South Africa.
After the promulgation of the Correctional Matters Amendment Act, the department has put in place a plan to operationalise the implementation of the new Act. The department has now established a fully-fledged Branch for Remand Detention. A total of 23 distinct centres for remand detainees have now been approved and established.
The department is currently implementing a pilot project for electronic monitoring of certain categories of inmates placed on parole, which started on 14 February 2012. It is our view that the pilot has been a resounding success, and that it is time to extend electronic monitoring to other categories of offenders, including offenders still serving custodial sentences in our centres. It is also our intention to bring before the JCPS cluster proposals on the consideration of the use of electronic monitoring, as part of alternative sentencing for minor offences.
This will ensure that only those who committed serious offences serve a custodial sentence. This year (2013), the Victim-Offender Dialogues will be one of our flagship programmes. On 30 January, we welcomed victims of the 1996 Worcester bombing, here in Tshwane, who arrived by train, from Worcester, to meet the youngest bomber, Stefaans Coetzee, on 31st January at the Pretoria Central Correctional Centre.
In 2007, both the Democrats and Republicans in the United States sponsored a unique legislative proposal to expand re-entry services for people leaving prison and returning to society. The Second Chance Act repudiates the notion that recidivism reduction is best achieved through deterrent threats alone, and calls for the delivery of services to former prisoners not in a minimal or grudging way but in a systematic, progressive fashion. It is a re-entry movement that could be classified as therapeutic jurisprudence, restorative justice and to some extent victims’ rights. It provides programmes, and services, that will aid rehabilitation efforts and encourage positive participation in society upon release.
On 22 January, we officially opened new premises for the Usethubeni Youth School, at the Westville Correctional Centre in KwaZulu-Natal. In the 2012 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations, our inmates achieved a 79,25% pass rate compared to 68,06% in 2011. Chris Phumulani Mazibuko, our best performing inmate from Usethubeni, achieved five distinctions in IsiZulu Home Language, English first Additional language, Life Orientation, Business Studies and Economics. The department will ensure that rehabilitation programmes impact the hearts, heads and hands of offenders.
We are working towards turning our prisons into learning centres, and we want offenders to read, study and work. The DCS will reinforce corrections programmes through music, reading for redemption, creative literature, the arts, cultural events, heritage renewal events, sporting events, formal education and acquisition of skills, economic renewal through cooperatives and enterprise development, spiritual growth and self-correcting interventions, among others. From the new financial year (1 April 2013), it will be compulsory for every inmate, who does not have a qualification equivalent to Grade 9, to complete Adult Education and Training (AET) level 1 to 4.
Our agreement with the Department of Basic Education to utilise offender labour to construct, and maintain schools, is being concluded. The establishment of the DCS trading entity must also be finalised. Through this trading entity, we may offer our customer base consisting of government, NGO’s and the private sector a wide variety of products and services, ranging from furniture, clothing, steel works, food products, agriculture and many others.
Incarceration should not signify civic death. Inmates are also people who have constitutional rights, though curtailed. We should be able to re-socialise offenders by restoring their self-respect, which will enhance their respect for other people and, therefore, create a new human being. The contribution of Correctional Services to a peaceful, secure and democratic society is in my view very much under-valued. We have an enormous responsibility to educate the public on the importance of rehabilitation in creating the South Africa we envisage – safe for all people, in particular women and children.
The department’s core functions is to enhance public safety, and effective criminal justice, through effective management of remand detention; reduce re-offending through offender management and rehabilitation; and social reintegration through management of non-custodial sentences and parole.
Corrections is a societal responsibility, and our vision is of a trilogy of offenders, victims and the community in partnership to break the cycle of crime. Correctional Services is the last hope for victims of crime, and for many of the individuals sentenced for crime. All offenders, except lifers considered inappropriate for parole, will return to society at the end of the sentences. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that they are in the best state to be constructive members of society on their release.
As part of the JCPS cluster, the key focus area of the department is “the fight against crime and corruption”. We have to ensure that all people in South Africa are, and feel, safe.
I wish this meeting every success.
Thank you.
