Programme Director
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services, Mr. Vincent Smith
Members of the Correctional Services Portfolio Committee
Other Members of Parliament
Councillors
Acting National Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services, Ms. Nontsikelelo Jolingana
Western Cape Regional Commissioner, Mr Delekile Klaas
Chief Deputy Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners
All other members of the Correctional Services family
Residents of the Vuk’uhambe Home for the Disabled
Representatives of Hillsong Africa Foundation
The Community of Gugulethu
Representatives of the Religious Fraternity
Civil Society Representatives
Offenders
Members of the media
Distinguished guests.
As we gather here in Gugulethu today, the 11 September 2013 marks exactly twelve years since the horrendous, deadly attacks on the World Trade Centre and the people of the United States of America. We should keep this nation in our memories on such a day, and continue to pray for peace in that country and in a world bedeviled by strife and conflict.
Today, on 11 September, may we all heed the recent call by Pope Francis that, “In beloved Syria, in the Middle East, in all the world let us work for reconciliation and peace”.
Ladies and gentlemen, we also ask for peace in Gugulethu, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Langa, Phillipi, Crossroads and the Cape Flats. Any conflict in our country delays our victory against the triple challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty. Let us stand up against any agendas that seek to divide us as South Africans.
During September, South Africa celebrates annual Heritage Month. The 2013 theme is “Reclaiming, Restoring and Celebrating our Living Heritage”. Next year (2014), our country will celebrate 20 years of freedom and democracy. However, we must never forget that our road to democracy was not easy and was achieved because of the unyielding sacrifices of thousands of patriots. The year 2014 presents an opportunity for the people of South Africa, the continent and rest of the world to join us in celebrating the South African story.
Although Gugulethu was appropriately named “our pride”, Gugulethu was also synonymous with the apartheid-era “Native Yard” (NY) street-naming system. In the spirit of reclaiming our heritage and identity, as different South African communities, we should all work hard to rewrite our post-colonial narratives which are embedded in place names. We should also recall the seven young people, aged between 16 and 23, who were shot and killed, on 3 March 1986, by the South African Police force.
Today, as we confront the plague of drugs which are wiping out our young people and destroying families and communities, may we remember that a high premium was paid for our freedom: not for us to give in, so easily, to such destructive addictions.
As we recall the names of the Gugulethu Seven, which included Mandla Simon Mxinwa, Zanisile Zenith Mjobo, Zola Alfred Swelani, Godfrey Jabulani Miya, Christopher Piet, Themba Mlifi and Zabonke John Konile, let us all be united again in the much needed fight against drugs - this new national threat against our freedom. Gugulethu, your place is written in hearts, and the liberation history, of our motherland.
Today, the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) is here to enable offenders, as part of their rehabilitation programme, to plough back to communities and demonstrate remorse for crimes committed. As part of promoting restorative justice, in partnership with Hillsong Africa Foundation, we will hand over wheelchairs to residents of Vuk’uhambe Home for the Disabled. The handing over of these wheelchairs, donated by Hillsong Africa Foundation and assembled by offenders, is part of many interventions by DCS, across the country, in nation-building.
We are looking forward to Hillsong Foundation spreading its wings not only here in the Western Cape, but across our country in implementing programmes geared towards non-discrimination, rehabilitation and social reintegration.
Garth van Niekerk, Chairperson of the Association for Persons with Disabilities (APD), reminds us not to “feel sorry” for those living with physical disabilities because “they are not stuck in wheelchairs [but] they are stuck without them”. On behalf of government, DCS is ensuring that its corrections vision contributes to social cohesion, nation building, security and peace.
We wish to, unreservedly, thank all community care-givers, and organisations, who tirelessly contribute in assisting people with disabilities to live fulfilling, and productive, lives. We also wish to express our gratitude to all correctional officials, and offenders, who contribute towards the constitutional imperative, and importance, of building an inclusive society. The transformation programme of our democratic government necessitated that prisons shift from institutions of derision to places of new beginnings.
For a long time, prisons were regarded as breeding grounds of criminality, places of punitive authoritarianism and remote places of everything despised by society. They also represented a microcosm of a divided country. Today, correctional centres are at the heart of our nation-building initiatives. It is for this reason that rehabilitation permeates all DCS activities.
We have, therefore, appropriately declared this year, “The Year of the Correctional Official”. The correctional official is the mediator between an offender and society. The purpose of our correctional system is not punishment, but protection of the public, promotion of social responsibility and enhancing human development to prevent repeat offending or the return to crime.
When parents, the extended family, the Sunday school teacher, the public school educator, the university professor and everyone else has failed, DCS steps in to remould the character, and improve the skills, of offenders so that they return to society with enhanced prospects of success. From this year, education for offenders is compulsory. We insist that people who leave correctional centres must have appropriate attitudes, and competencies, to successfully integrate back into society as law-abiding, and productive, citizens.
In this regard, we are proud to announce that Shaun Coetzee, an offender at Dwarsrivier Correctional Centre here in the Western Cape, was recently awarded the Adult Education & Training (AET) Best Learner of the Year 2013 by the Western Cape Education Department. He competed against eight nominees from AET community centres in the Cape Winelands District. The award is in recognition of exceptional performance, commitment and determination in Adult Learning and Training.
One of the primary missions of corrections is to develop, and implement, correctional programmes that balance the concepts of deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation for individuals in correctional facilities. At least 95% of those in custody will return to society.
DCS has various offender rehabilitation programmes which focus on restorative justice, skilling, training, reading and offender re-integration.We impart skills such as carpentry, motor mechanics, plumbing, house electrification, building of houses and schools, sewing, baking and farming. We are increasing the number of offenders who participate in offender labour, and skills development, programmes.
We have a MoA with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to use offender labour to build schools and supply furniture. This includes the manufacture, and delivery, of school furniture, rehabilitation of school furniture, construction of school infrastructure, maintenance, and refurbishment, of schools and establishment of school gardens.
To date, offenders, and officials, have built, and renovated, several houses, and schools, in disadvantaged communities including tiling, re-roofing, installing built-in cupboards, painting and plastering, cutting the grass and trees, clearing bushes and cleaning yards.
Our production workshops, which operate as business units, include 10 wood workshops, 10 steel workshops, 19 textile workshops, a shoe factory, six bakeries and three sanitary towel workshops. Agricultural productivity takes place on our 21 correctional centre farms, and 96 smaller vegetable production sites, all spread over some 40,000 hectares of land.
In the past financial year (April 2012 to March 2013), inmates at correctional centre farms and abattoirs produced more than 6,5 million litres of milk, 551,000 kilograms of red meat, 1,8 million kilograms of pork, 1 million kilograms of chicken, 1,4 million dozen of eggs, 9 million kilograms of vegetables and 607,000 kilograms of fruit. We have adopted various orphanages and old age homes, and continue to donate excess products to disadvantaged communities.
A number of inmates are also pursing tertiary education in commerce, law and the arts. Offenders are writing, and publishing, their experiences. We want to impact the hearts, heads and hands of offenders, and ensure that they leave our facilities with a skill in one hand and a certificate in the other hand. Thus, we urge all communities to afford ex-offenders a second chance and to desist the temptation of stigmatising ex-offenders. Remember, every saint has a past.
Corrections is not the sole responsibility of the Department of Correctional Services – it is a responsibility shared with society.Our policies create opportunities for such a partnership to be taken to unprecedented levels. The role of societal institutions must be visible, at all levels, where corrections is taking place.
Founding President Nelson Mandela spoke against the stigmatisation of ex-offenders, whom he regards as our brothers and sisters. Madiba also asks us to eradicate stigmatisation, and discrimination, of the disabled. Even in matured Western democracies, such as the United Kingdom, people with disabilities lead lives wrecked by poverty, and exclusion, and are less likely, than non-disabled people, to achieve their full potential.
In President Mandela’s view, “it is so easy to think of equality demands with reference primarily to race, colour, religion and gender; and to forget, or to relegate to secondary importance, the vast discrimination against disabled persons.” All of us should consistently value the capacities of every individual. Parents of children with a disability must believe in the capacities of their children, and understand their rights.
Churches, and other religious institutions, should spread the message of righteousness and the value of every human being including persons with a disability. All activities,and services, should be accessible to persons with a disability. Different media, such as television, radio and newspapers, should be committed to give attention to the situation, and the rights of people with disabilities, in their content and programmes.
Our democratic government, founded on the Bill of Rights and a caring ethos, is hard at work to build an inclusive society. As DCS, today’s event symbolises our efforts in mainstreaming disability imperatives into our programmes.To our offenders, you have made your country proud.
Baie dankie, reyaleboga, enkosi, siyabonga, thank you.
