Programme Director
Correctional Services Deputy Minister Dr Ngoako Ramatlhodi
Distinguished National Commissioners of Southern African
Chief Deputy Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners
Special guests including media representatives present here today
Ladies and gentlemen
I greet you all this glorious morning of South Africa in the spirit of ensuring a better and safer life for all the people of our wonderful country.
I am sure your travel and the hospitality you received on your arrival has been a truly memorable South African welcome which exudes ubuntu and warmth we pride ourselves of.
Colleagues, this year 2011, is the year of the celebrations of 100 years of the South African penal system. It has been a long 100 years and the fact that we are here today and that this former MK Combatant is addressing you wearing this uniform is a sign of the great progress we have made. I was also honored last year when I went to an event in the Eastern Cape - to have met a number of former generals who headed various prisons in the former Transkei. It is at that point that I started considering whether an organisation such as this should not dedicate a fair amount of its resources to the recording and preservation of the history of Correctional Services.
This is a matter I will still pursue with the top management of Department Correctional Services (DCS). I do trust that it will at least be possible to organise a session - later in the year - where I can host these former leaders of DCS including my predecessors in post-apartheid South African Correctional Services for breakfast or maybe as Special Guests in the Annual Mlombile Memorial Lecture. It is appropriate, ladies and gentlemen, that I ask that we observe a moment of silence in remembrance and in honor of the late Vernie Petersen - a former National Commissioner who passed on a few weeks ago. (Request audience to stand and observe a minute of silence).
The history of the South African penal system is inextricably linked to the history of this region - not least because of the role of the former apartheid regimes in the government of the peoples of our region. None of us have not experienced the violation of our countries' sovereignty by the former government in pursuit of its Apartheid agenda on the region and the continent. In as much as we have a common past - I wish to submit that the future will draw us even together. Whether this be as a result of economic interdependence, political interdependence of the reality of the mobility of people across our borders - the future demands that we work together much closer than we have done before - this time for a common good.
I must first express our deeply felt gratitude for leaving your very busy schedules and prioritise this networking and information sharing session of corrections and prison national commissioners of Southern Africa.
This day is crucial in the history of our country and also the continent in many respects.The current ruling African National Congress met with the African People’s Organisation, the Natal Indian Congress and the Transvaal Indian Congress here in Johannesburg and reached an agreement for great unity and cooperation that paved the way for a mass movement that helped to attain freedom and democracy. It is on the same day that Sudan obtained its independence and Botswana was declared a British Protectorate. We are again gathered here in Johannesburg, just before end of eight years since the signing of the Johannesburg declaration by Ministers of Southern Africa responsible for prisons and corrections.
As I welcome you, I have no doubt in my mind that our gathering today will go down the annals of our history as the day that a new trajectory for accelerated transforming and integrating the correction and prison systems of Southern Africa was launched.
Why are we meeting here?We are meeting under the theme “towards accelerated harmonisation and transformation of corrections and prison systems in Southern Africa”.
The meeting of Ministers responsible for corrections held in Johannesburg in 2003 was a watershed development which inspired our determination to forge ahead with reform of our corrections and prisons systems, undaunted by the challenges confronting us.
In their Declaration, the Ministers identified the following areas for regional cooperation:
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Sharing of experiences and challenges in order to contribute to upgrading the quality and effectiveness of the correctional systems in Southern Africa with the aim of reaching compliance with international instruments, norms and standards;
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Creating mechanism to meet and liaise in initiating a process of aligning multilateral corrections with Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union; and
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Enhancing corrections’ contribution towards the realisation of the ideals of the African Renaissance.
I can say without any fear of contradiction that since this milestone meeting, we have witnessed a range of improvements which include:
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The establishment of a Sub-Sub Committee of Prisons and Corrections within the Southern African Development Community;
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The leadership of prisons and corrections in Southern Africa played a pivotal role in strengthening CESCA (Conference of Eastern Southern and Central African Heads of Correctional Services), which gave birth to Africa Correctional Services Association (ACSA);
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A number of bilateral agreements to advance mutually beneficial objectives within Southern Africa have continued to grow from strength to strength;
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We have joined on numerous occasions a series of initiatives aimed at establishing and reconstituting corrections in war ravages countries in our continent including Sudan;
This conference seeks to build the requisite depth in our mutual understanding and full appreciation of the task at hand, which requires intensive solidarity that would weave together our visions, missions and strategies to address a series of challenges and help us reach our ideals sooner rather than later.
During the course of this conference we will learn more about how much we need each other. I just want to reflect here that we all need to consider a few matters that will define how we move forward:
1) We must consider our ability to implement the decisions of SADC in a more conscious and serious manner. Indeed, we must recommit ourselves to improve our role in SADC subcommittees and place the role of corrections on the centre of the agenda.
2) I would like us to use the next few days to also consider how far we have gone in meeting our bilateral considerations to each other - and assess whether we are moving fast enough.
3) An important matter that we also have to consider is how we strengthen our ability to learn from each other - and enhance our strengths in areas such as security, training, development, social re-integration etc.
4) We must also make time to reflect on the strategic direction of corrections in general - observing our short-medium term objectives as countries - while observing international trends and developments. A matter of interest, for example: is privatisation of certain functions of correctional services.
5) As you may be aware, the South African Department of Correctional Services has two training centres - in my recent visit to Lesotho a few weeks ago, I left the pass-out of the officers there pondering how we can exchange some skills between ourselves - even if it is just at the level of teaching our officers our varied cultures and languages - we are currently reformulating our strategic approach to security and one of the things we must analyze is how organised crime syndicates from our different countries can potentially affect the role, form and functions of gangs in prisons.
Programme Director, allow me to says to downplay the achievements I have highlighted above by saying – they are just new baselines for advancing the transformation and integration of our prison and correctional systems to serve a very impatient citizenry that is progressively losing confidence and trust in prisonsor correctional services in particular and the criminal justice system in general.
We cannot succeed without public trust and confidence, because the multi-tier societal intervention to create safer environments in our respective countries hinges on every individual and community taking responsibility to:
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Prevent crime,
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Fight crime,
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Assist in rehabilitation of offenders,
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Helping in ensuring sustainable social re-integration, which all will contribute in breaking the cycle of crime and therefore reduce recidivism.
We are still confronted by high levels of recidivism, low levels of trust, limited access of offenders to rehabilitation programmes, misalignment of our constitutional and legislative frameworks that makes it even more difficult to address matters of inmates transfers.
As you can see on the programmes, we will be having a series of papers presented that seek to:
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Share best practices and adoption of excellence as a habit we all should strive for,
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Share experiences on matters of dealing with overcrowding and its twin issues for debate – alternatives to incarceration,
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Embrace of the not so new philosophy of rehabilitation,
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Ensuring that security fundaments are in place as non-negotiable for rehabilitation and social re-integration to take place effectively,
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Addressing the ultimate acid test of the effectiveness of our corrections systems, recidivism,
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Making the parole system work best, and
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Delivery of humanising health care services in a context of HIV and AIDS scourge and other communicable diseases in prisons.
I am sure you will be energised and inspired by the inputs we will receive during this conference such that the fire we will have inside each one of us – will not die down for the next five to ten years. The people of Southern Africa deserve much more than what we have individually and collectively delivered thus far.It is our responsibility to empower them so that they can exercise their democratic rights and hold us accountable.
I must stress that our common challenge is to change the face of corrections for the better. I am reminded here of what Ahmed Kathrada wrote in his memoirs "The warders were hardly educated men, and finding themselves in a position of power over political prisoners, many of them highly qualified in their respective fields, created a syndrome of false superiority..."
I am confident that the next few days will assist us move closer to the ideal of a region that is willing and able to share its strengths as it is capable of overcoming its challenges. I call upon each official in this room to re-commit to effective and practical solutions and proposals on how we can form a better SADC in the area of managing correctional services and prison services.
In conclusion, let me state that I wish we can adopt a declaration of this conference including clear decision on how we will move beyond words to implementation.
Allow me to end this address by leaving us with food for thought - a poem by the late Poet and President of Republic of Angola Dr Agostinho Neto:
Civilização ocidental
Latas pregadas em paus
fixados na terra
fazem a casa
Os farrapos completam
a paisagem íntima
O sol atravessando as frestas
acorda o seu habitante
Depois as doze horas de trabalho
escravo
Britar pedra
acarretar pedra
britar pedra
acarretar pedra
ao sol
à chuva
britar pedra
acarretar pedra
It will be hard work and hard play. We will visit one of our centres within this area of Sandton – Leeuwkop. We have also prepared for a South African welcome of special guests tomorrow evening.
Bem vindos a todos e obrigado!
Bienne venue a tous e merci beaucoup!
Source: Department of Correctional Services
