Thank you, Chairperson and hon members of the NCOP, for giving us the opportunity to give you a very brief report on the work of Correctional Services. We will try and give a report of the period since Correctional Services came into existence; it won't only be about the budget for this year.
First of all, let me take this opportunity to convey our condolences to the family of a young lady who was with us for two days last week. She was the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs of Kenya, Lorna Laboso. We had lunch together last Friday before the Ministers, who had come for the meeting, left for Kenya to go home. We heard this morning that she died in a crash in Kenya. As a department and as the people who are forming the African Correctional Services Association, we convey our condolences to her family.
Secondly, our condolences go to the family of a young lady, Miss Pretty Shuping, the vice president of Popcru, who passed away yesterday. She used to work very closely with us, and we will hear from the labour union when the funeral arrangements have been made. I extend my condolences and that of the department because she worked very closely with us since 2004. She was part of the joint task team that I established in this department together with Bongani Xholishe to ensure that things were running smoothly. There was interaction and she strengthened that interaction. May her soul also rest in peace.
Let me now proceed with the Budget Vote. Chairperson, hon members, the Deputy Minister of Correctional Services - Madam Loretta Jacobus, as I call her - the National Commissioner of Correctional Services, Mr Vernie Petersen, the regional commissioners that are here with us today and the office staff of the Ministry, guests and all officials of Correctional Services, four years ago I made a commitment to make a difference in the lives of offenders, members of the Department of Correctional Services and the victims of crime. Today I stand here with a sense of accomplishment in many respects while also acknowledging that there are many challenges to overcome as we march more deeply into freedom and democracy.
For these achievements, tribute should go to all officials who have demonstrated amazing determination under the leadership of both former Commissioner Linda Mti and the current National Commissioner, Mr Vernie Petersen, and our stakeholders who have taken our relations to a higher level. Our stakeholders include the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders, Nicro, Phaphama, the Institute for Healing of Memories, Khulisa, the Open Society Foundation and the President's Awards. They have responded well to the call for "Business Unusual" to deliver safe custody, rehabilitation and social reintegration of offenders for a safer South Africa.
I must express my gratitude for the nation's investment in its correctional system in the past years. Our budget has improved by 8,5% for this financial year and will substantially improve in the last year of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period by over 20% to R15,3 billion in the 2010-11 financial year. As we have done up to now, we will continue to ensure that we deliver appropriate returns on this investment and in all other respects.
This speech will therefore not just give an account of what happened or what has been achieved over the last financial year, but is also an overview of the third term of government in particular and the last 14 years of democratic governance.
I must assure this House that the management of Correctional Services under the leadership and guidance of the national commissioners, regional commissioners and area commissioners has placed a heavy premium on building the Department of Correctional Services as an employer of choice. Efforts to build a formidable team of professional cadres who cherish and value corrections as a profession are under way.
These efforts include the seven-day establishment currently being piloted in Johannesburg correctional centres for the purpose of phasing it in across the department as from 1 July 2008; an occupation-specific dispensation for correctional officials is also to be phased in during July; and there is the establishment of the interim Corrections Professions Council to ensure that corrections joins other established and respected professions.
These plans are based on great achievements to date that include a 26% increase of staff from 32 000 to 40 000, after handling and finalising the recruitment of over 10 000 officials within just three years; improved representation of woman at the executive management level to 37%, at senior management level to 26% and at middle management level to 30%, while also increasing women recruitment of women at entry level to 30%.
I must again make an announcement here that today Cabinet gave us the go ahead and agreed to the appointment of Ms Subashini Moodley, our brand-new Chief Deputy Commissioner, CDC, for development and care. She is sitting over there. Ms Moodley, can you please stand up. [Applause.] That 37% now moves up to 39%. Welcome to the family of leaders! There has also been an introduction of a death grant of R200 000 per member to alleviate the hardship of family members of officials who have passed on in the line of duty and which came into effect on 1 April 2008; and the introduction of national corrections excellence awards to show appreciation to the pockets of excellence that are growing at excellent rates in Correctional Services and as a strategy for the creation of a critical mass of ideal correctional officials.
We have developed and launched an integrated human resource strategy that incorporates interventions aimed at recruiting and retaining scarce skills. This strategy includes increased entry level for professionals such as nurses, medical practitioners, pharmacists and psychologists. About 189 Senior Management Service, SMS, members are attending a leadership development programme at the Wits Business School this year, which will sharpen the echelon for purposes of improving overall performance in the department. Over 90% of our SMS members were deployed at the coalface of service delivery as part of Project Khaedu.
To strengthen the implementation of projects like the Offender Rehabilitation Path and Social Reintegration, we have trained managers and officials in 36 centres of excellence and 54 other priority centres across the country on unit management and case management systems. We plan to reach 189 centres this year, our target being to reach all 241 correctional centres by 2010-11. We have improved the management of the budget voted to implement our programmes. Departmental spending has improved from 94,1% of the allocated R9,8 billion for 2006-2007 to 97,7% of the allocated R11,4 billion in the 2007-2008 financial year. This is mainly due to the improvement in billing from the Department of Public Works for property management services and capital works projects as well as the expenditure incurred in line with the requirements for the implementation of the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Chamber Resolution 1 of 2007.
One of the major challenges facing the criminal justice system in South Africa is its management of the remand detention system. Correctional Services is housing 57% of the country's 87 000 remand detainees. Out of that 87 000 we have 57 000 that are inside our centres, with the SAPS housing 35 000 and Social Development housing 2 129.
The system is facing challenges of case backlogs, limited integrated planning, poor co-ordination and the absence of integrated remand detention information systems, resulting in the duplication of services and poor handling of remand detainees - those are awaiting-trial detainees. We are on course to turn this scenario around, working with our partners in the criminal justice system to realise: ten dedicated remand detention centres for housing over 50% as a start; the modernisation of the system through expanding inmate tracking by introducing electronic monitoring; aligning information systems and expanding video postponement - those that serve in the select committee under Kgoshi know that we have a problem in dealing with people taken from court and back only to be remanded by the courts - and optimal use of alternative sentencing and provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act to manage offender population.
The recent foiling of an attempted escape by a very canny and dangerous inmate in the Pretoria local centre represents good work done by officials on a daily basis. These efforts are helping to reduce escapes by 14%, from 95 in 2006 to 82 escapes in 2007 and sustain a 93% reduction in escapes registered over the last 14 years of our democratic rule. We will continue to improve security as it also helped to reduce incidents of assault by 53%, from 1882 to 855 within one year.
We have witnessed the substantial increase in the numbers of long-term violent, aggressive and dangerous offenders over the last 14 years. To deal with this, we have established a project team with a dedicated project manager to ensure a systematic and sustained focus covering short-term, medium-term and long-term interventions. These interventions include: rolling out further use of security technology to cover all our facilities; finalising the establishment and optimum use of our new Field Vetting Unit with the help of the National Intelligence Services, which has already trained officials to ensure that those working in higher-risk areas are constantly vetted to ensure higher levels of integrity; and, in partnership with the Safety and Security Sector Education and Training Authority, Sasseta, the South African Police Service, SAPS, and the Mangaung Maximum Correctional Centre, we are working on training and retraining our security officials.
This is informed by experiences in the Qalakabusha and Johannesburg escape incidents and the way we have responded to that. We are intensifying disciplinary processes while revising our procedures to stand up to the sophistication and complexities of organised crime.
We have successfully piloted an audiovisual remand system in Durban Westville Correctional Centre. This audiovisual link between our facility and the Pinetown, Durban and Estcourt courts, particularly for remand and release appearances, has made sure that 42 cases can be heard within four hours, saving us thousands of rands required for logistics and has substantially reduced the risk of escape.
The project has now been extended to St Albans Correctional Centre and Port Elizabeth last month and will be rolled out to a further 36 courts and 20 correctional centres between now and July so that if it is going to be remand or a release it is done easily between the courts and us. We don't have to take some of these dangerous offenders there, particularly the likes of you-know-who, who nearly escaped about a week ago. [Laughter.]
It is common knowledge that government strategy to fight crime, in particular contact crimes of aggression and violence, resulted in a rapid growth of the offender population especially between 1995 and now. This figure skyrocketed by over 90% in just 10 years from 95 000 in 1995 to 187 000 in 2005. From 1995 to date, we have built seven new correctional centres that include Goodwood. These are the new-generation centres that really are good for unit management and rehabilitation processes.
Goodwood, Malmesbury, Emthonjeni, Qalakabusha, Ebongweni and Kokstad Medium are all aligned to the new concept of rehabilitation. The two public- private partnership, PPP correctional centres in Mangaung and Kutuma- Sinthumule are part of a broader plan that includes renovation of 57 facilities and upgrading of 12 facilities nationally.
We are firmly on course and have given the department capital expenditure programme the requisite boost to fire on all cylinders. The facilities budget for the outer two years of the MTEF will increase from 17% and 20% respectively in order to cover the planned massive infrastructure development programme. These capital works will deliver over 21 000 bed spaces by 2010-11.
They include the Kimberley Correctional Centre that is already 58% complete; five new-generation correctional centres by the PPP partnership to be built in East London in the Eastern Cape; Klerksdorp, North West; Port Shepstone, KwaZulu-Natal; Nigel in Gauteng; and Paarl in the Western Cape. We have tried to spread them out as much as we could. The remaining two that are planned are Polokwane in Limpopo and Leeuwkop in Gauteng, but they are still going through the processes of securing the land and doing the viability studies respectively.
The infrastructure programme is helping to make positive waves in local economies and to push back frontiers of poverty and underdevelopment. The construction of the R815 million Kimberly Correctional Centre is a living example of this. The following milestones have been registered at Kimberley whilst we are building. About 94% of the 1 235 jobs created, which included these for 91 women and 137 ex-offenders, went to the local communities because we are trying our best so that, as they come out and have skills, they work on building these prisons and we can make sure that they don't come back into them.
Over R4,7 million rand was spent to train 86 young people as part of the National Youth Service Programme; 412 officials, 40% of whom are women, have been appointed to manage the facility and are currently in Correctional Services training colleges in Kroonstad and Zonderwater. The groups that are there now are the groups that are going to come back and go to Kimberley.
In his state of the nation address President Thabo Mbeki called for growing co-operation amongst all partners in fighting crime, driven of course by the rule of law, respect for the judiciary and pursuit of human rights.
One of the outstanding achievements of the previous financial year was a national stakeholders' conference which underlined the need for building a South African corrections association of all key players in the corrections community. The meeting attended by over 50 delegates endorsed a pledge to work more closely together to found corrections committees in South Africa. That meeting agreed to build an enduring partnership to advance the cause of corrections and establish a joint task team to explore and drive the establishment of the first-ever association in South Africa.
We have taken note of comments made by our stakeholders; one called for self-sufficiency of correctional services as a mechanism so that we make sure that inmates that are inside now and their upkeep is not a financial burden on the fiscus.
Government has called for "Business Unusual" in accelerating service delivery in the remaining period of the third democratic government. We may have made a difference in many respects, but turning around and running a correctional system efficiently and effectively has its inherent challenges. The ideals spelt out in the White Paper will take over a decade to realise in a very supportive context. To ensure "Business Unusual", Correctional Services has identified five key strategic projects, two White Paper projects and three Service Delivery Improvement Plans to position itself as a key player in ensuring that government's Apex Priorities are centralised as reflected in the Estimates of National Expenditure.
We will redouble our efforts and investments to intensify infrastructure development, re-engineering of the country's remand detention system, phasing in of the Offender Rehabilitation Path, enhancing sustainable and social integration of offenders, the introduction of the seven-day working week, roll-out of centres of excellence and enhancing of security interventions.
We have also identified three key areas of focus: improving processes of filling vacancies with quicker turnaround times, enhancing adult basic education as a key pro-poor intervention and improving the management of visitations to improve humane treatment not just of the offenders but also of visiting families so as to enhance family ties.
We have not only focused on delivering on our mandate nationally but have contributed immensely in advancing the new corrections ethos in Africa to ensure that the ideals outlined in the international and African declarations and protocols are implemented.
In September 2008 we will be launching the association I was talking about, the African Correctional Services Association, in Zambia. This is a decision that was affirmed by a historic meeting of the African correction Ministers that met at Kievits Kroon in Pretoria last month. Indeed, any correctional system in the world faces a number of standing challenges, but I'm certain in South Africa Correctional Services is poised to set new trends in many respects.
This is our account of the difference we have made since making this undertaking. I must also emphasise that when I started, I started with the analogy of this big truck. I don't want to mention what I normally call it because it will be unparliamentary and it will be un-NCOP. This huge truck with 32 wheels; we have been driving it. Now, it is there outside, serviced, everything done, with all the dangerous and nondangerous people and the wonderful people, our officials, in there.
Who are its co-drivers? Yes, Cheryl Gillwald and I are first co-drivers. After that, it is Loretta Jacobus and I. That truck is purring nicely. If you listen to the engine, it is purring nicely: grrrrgrrrr. [Laughter.] All it needs is to be taken from where it is now to its destination. That is what it needs now, to go to destination transformation, destination gender equality, destination efficiency, destination noncorruption, destination where we can be proud of the foundation that we have laid.
I would like to thank the leadership of the portfolio and select committees under Kgoshi Mokoena and the kinds of inputs that we have got over the years as they do oversight over us. Kgoshi and the select committee, we appreciated that. We were always treated with respect whenever we came in front of the select committee. We were always given advice. Even on your oversight visits I would know that when you came back, you would give us a report and we would then be able to build on that report and feel that the oversight role that you are playing is an oversight role not only for us as individuals but for the department as a whole and for governance in this country. So, keep up that good work. I thank you. [Applause.]