Question no: 458
Mr J Selfe (DA) to ask the Minister of Correctional Services
(1) Whether her department overspent its budget in the 2008/09 financial year; if so, (a) by what amount and (b) what has been the implications for the delivery of services;
(2) Whether her department placed advertisements in weekend newspapers (details furnished); if so, (a) in which newspapers, (b) at what cost and (c) for what purpose?
Reply:
(1) Yes, the department did overspend its budget in the 2008/09 financial year.
(a) R483,821 million.
(b) The over-expenditure mainly resulted from payment of overtime to correctional officials in line with the implementation of the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council Resolution number 1 of 2007. There were no negative implications on service delivery.
(2) Yes, the department did place an advertorial in two national newspapers following the budget vote speech delivery.
(a) The City Press and Sunday Times.
(b) The costs were R187 000 for the City Press and R340 000 for the Sunday Times.
(c) Correctional Services is obligated to inform the stakeholders and the public particularly, on the department’s planned use of the allocated budget of over R47 billion over the three years of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework. It is a handful of people that was able to listen to the Minister's tabulation of how the allocated budget would be used to improve the efficacy of the corrections system and to reduce re-offending rates. To ensure that opinion makers, stakeholders and ordinary citizens are better informed about these crucial programmes, it was necessary for the department to place these advertorials. The value of further debates on the Minister and Deputy Minister's plans for the use of the allocated R47 billion over three years in and outside of government cannot be compared with the costs of the advertorials outlined in this brief.
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
10 July 2009
