The situation is back to normal at the Johannesburg Correctional Centres and normal services are being rendered to offenders and visitors today, 19 August 2009. In essence 95 percent of the 1558 staff complement of the Johannesburg management area returned to normal work.
These positive developments come after officials embarked on a go slow yesterday to complain primarily about alleged delays in the implementation of the Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD) and other matters like staff shortages and security.
Officials from all four correctional centres had participated in the protest action, but today only a small group from medium a section (awaiting trial detention centre) continued with the illegal industrial action. Members of the Correctional Services emergency support teams and the South African Police Serves (SAPS) were brought in to intervene.
Only 88 officials from mainly the Awaiting Trial Detention (ATD) section have been served with letters of intention to suspend them following their engagement in illegal industrial action. Of these 88 officials, 85 are from the ATD section while three are from the female section of the management area.
Area Commissioner of the Johannesburg Management Area, Mr Kenny Bouwer said, "The disruptive actions will not be tolerated in an essential service and security institution whose mandate is primarily to protect the public." He reminded officials that their continued action is in defiance of the Department of Correctional Services Code of Conduct which seeks to ensure that the officials perform their duties in a professional manner that enhances excellent service delivery.
Contingency plans are in place to first ensure public safety and to sustain delivery of services to both offenders and members of the public. Mr Bouwer welcome the 95 percent of staff that returned to work today, and reiterated that the matter of OSD payments and their security concerns are foremost in the minds of the department's leadership and management. He said good progress was made in the implementation of the OSD with R284 million paid in July 2009 and the remaining partition of the first phase due to be paid on 30 August 2009.
Enquiries:
Kenny Bouwer
Tel: 011 933 7006
Cell: 082 578 0525
Samantha Ramsewaki
Cell: 073 115 0374
E-mail: Samantha.ramsewaki@dcs.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
19 August 2009
