Thank you, Chairperson. I must again say that it does feel very good to be home. Hon Minister of Correctional Services, Minister Balfour; members of the NCOP; the National Commissioner of Correctional Services, Commissioner Petersen and your executive management team, all the regional commissioners who have joined us here today as well as the newly appointed chief deputy commissioner of development and care. I also add my voice to congratulate you, Madam, and I have no doubt in my mind that you will be able to step into the shoes of your predecessor, Sis Jabu, as she was fondly known. There's a saying in Afrikaans, "Jy sal jou plek vol staan". [You will pull your weight.] I hope you understand what I'm saying.
Our personnel from the Department of Correctional Services who have joined us here this afternoon and invited guests - I don't see any -this month we are celebrating the immeasurable contribution of young people to the attainment of a free and democratic South Africa. Some of the young people who contributed to the birth of this new nation are occupying key strategic positions in this Parliament, in this House, in particular, and right across our nation.
Our mission today, as government, is to create an environment where today's youth can also make the best use of the foundation laid by this class of 76. We must address challenges that are currently facing families, communities and the broader society, like unemployment, a lack of education, family violence, HIV/Aids, and peer pressure.
This reality facing our youth demands that Correctional Services must, alongside improving security, emphasise rehabilitation and development programmes aimed at turning these young people that are languishing in our correctional facilities into socially responsible and productive citizens.
Strengthening the capacity of Correctional Services to deliver on its core mandate is an integral part of government's priority of consolidating and advancing the fight against crime. As announced by the President in his state of the nation address in February of this year, these priorities include, among other things, the revamping of the criminal justice system to intensify our offensive against crime.
The White Paper on Corrections implores us to intervene in ways that would turn an offender into a socially responsible and law-abiding citizen. As a result, we have established a number of strategic and sustainable partnerships with other government departments and civil society organisations. For example, the DCS and the President's Award for Youth Empowerment programme are currently engaged in skills training initiatives involving over 2 000 inmates from 65 correctional centres around the country.
We have intensified levels of offender participation in various programmes which include sport, arts, culture, agriculture, and skills development programmes in collaboration with the Department of Labour.
Whilst the DCS sees itself as a place of new beginnings, we are concerned at the fast-growing trend of children who are in custody for having committed serious violent crimes. Our youngest offender currently is at Leeuwkop; he's 13 years of age and is awaiting trial for murder.
One area of great achievement is the reduction of the number of children incarcerated in correctional centres. We have reduced the numbers of children in correctional centres by 51% from 4 129 in 2003 to 2 079 in 2007. This came about as a result of an integrated intervention of the justice, crime prevention and security and social sector clusters that have taken collaboration to new heights over the past years.
Currently we are assessing the possible multiple implications the Child Justice Bill will have on Correctional Services to ensure appropriate design of its roll-out programme under the guidance, of course, of the Department of Justice.
Coming to HIV/Aids, we have reviewed our comprehensive HIV/Aids programme in line with government's national strategic plan, NSP, which I am sure the House is aware of, and continue to improve on its implementation resulting in the following achievements: Firstly, 376 officials were trained as master trainers and peer educators; 296 support groups were established while also running nearly 6 000 HIV/Aids awareness and health education sessions; 320 were trained on voluntary counselling and testing and currently there are 16 accredited antiretroviral, ARV, sites in Correctional Services with 4 294 offenders on ARV therapy.
The progress we have made was also acknowledged by the Deputy President recently when we launched the 16th antiretroviral management site in the Pretoria Management Area. That was about three weeks ago.
Chairperson, we had made a clear undertaking before to intensify efforts aimed at mainstreaming victims' roles and responsibilities in the management of our offender population, particularly in the parole system. We have invested substantial financial resources in this project, including the provision of training to the chairpersons and their deputies of 52 Correctional Supervision and Parole Boards as well as to all their support personnel.
Our Constitution implores us to ensure the basic human rights of all South Africans inclusive of offenders. These include everyone's right to primary health care services, of course, subject to institutional means and resources.
It is common knowledge that the whole South African health care system has been suffering from the drain of scarce skills, inclusive of medical practitioners, nurses, psychologists and social workers. Correctional Services is indeed no exception to this norm, which informed government's intervention through the introduction of the occupation-specific dispensation, OSD, for these professionals, also known as Resolution 1/2007.
With the number of social workers improving, the department reached 15 744 offenders over the past financial year. Spiritual care services were provided, with 165 000 sessions held, inclusive of group and individual sessions.
We reached only 84% of our targeted delivery of psychological services, with 13 034 offenders reached against our target of 15 500 in the previous financial year. We introduced the OSD for psychologists and educationists in the roll-out in 2009, and lastly, a job evaluation programme is under way as part of the department's recruitment and retention strategy to improve the conditions of service of professionals in our employment.
Coming to the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons, let me take this opportunity to thank the outgoing Acting Judge, Judge Yekiso, for acting in this position over the past year. I also want to welcome his successor, Judge Deon Van Zyl. Amongst the other tasks of the Judicial Inspectorate is to inspect or arrange for inspection of correctional centres in order to report on the treatment of offenders and their conditions; and to inspect any corrupt or dishonest practices in correctional centres. These are some examples; I'm not going to read the whole list. The allocated budget for this Inspectorate for the 2008- 09 financial year is R17 905 million.
The National Council for Correctional Services, NCCS, continued with its statutory responsibility to advise the Minister of Correctional Services in relation to parole placement recommendations for offenders serving life sentences. During the year under review, the NCCS has already interacted with the department in relation to the development of the incarceration framework as envisaged in the Correctional Services Amendment Act, which is an Act which recently passed through this House as well. The allocated budget for the NCCS for this financial year is R703 000.
In conclusion, I would like the thank the Minister, firstly, the Commissioner of Correctional Services, all the officials and executive members, the staff of the Ministry, the chairperson and your whole committee. Sir, thank you very much for the co-operation and guidance that you have provided to both the Minister and me. I think this will be the last opportunity we have to thank you publicly, but thank you very much and you have indeed contributed to the achievements that we've listed over the past four years.
Let us, therefore, place all hands on deck to ensure that it is "Business Unusual" and that the DCS indeed becomes a place of new beginnings. Thank you very much. [Applause.]