Deputy Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Nkosi Phathekile Holomisa visited the Mqanduli Correctional Centre, in the Eastern Cape region, on 01 July 2019. This was the Deputy Minister’s first visit to a DCS correctional facility, since his appointment to the correctional services portfolio.
Nkosi Holomisa engaged with the executive leadership of the region as part of familiarising himself with the Eastern Cape correctional environment. He proceeded to tour the facility and conducted inspections on the conditions of inmates in the housing units. He encouraged inmates to commit themselves to correcting their offending behaviour, and becoming active and law-abiding citizens.a
The visit was aimed at ensuring that sentenced offenders are provided with effective rehabilitation programmes in line with their correctional sentence plans and that parolees and probationers are successfully reintegrated into society. “Offenders need to plough back into communities they have wronged through the skills that they acquire during their incarceration” he said. The Deputy Minister added that offender labour can be used to clean up the community and the centre.
The visit concluded with an interactive session between coalface officials and Nkosi Holomisa. They were afforded an opportunity to raise their concerns and challenges. The Deputy Minister highlighted the importance of interacting with administrators of the centre in order to ensure the operationalization of the core mandate of the department. He pledged his commitment to continuous engagement with officials in order to realise the vision of the department.
The Deputy Minister was accompanied by a delegation from Head Office comprising of the National Commissioner, Mr Arthur Fraser, Chief Security Officer, Mr Lucky Mthethwa, Regional Commissioner of the Eastern Cape, Mr Phikolomzi Mbambo and the executive leadership of the Eastern Cape Region.
