Chairperson, thank you very much for giving us the last opportunity to respond to a few inputs that have been made by the hon members of the NCOP. We appreciate that you are going to make this department grow from strength to strength because as legislators you go out there, you see some of these problems and you are able to confront them and then bring them to the attention of the department as part of your oversight work. So every comment that has been made from this podium is taken quite seriously because it can do one thing and one thing only, and that is to make the department work efficiently. That is what it is all about.
Let me start with uBaba Manyosi. What I like about his approach is that he is approaching it purely from the viewpoint of the ANC as the party that is governing this country. I am a member of the ANC through and through and whatever the ANC policy is all about has got to be adhered to because we are the ones that are ruling this country. There is no "manga! manga!" [There is no doubt about it] business about it.
As for the issue of policies that we have brought in, we actually kicked out policies that were bad and developed new policies. These policies are now showing the way because the old policies had not yielded anything.
The reintegration of offenders is an idea that came only with one organisation and that is the ANC. With reintegration and the Offender Rehabilitation Path, ORP, and everything else we are doing, it is because that is the policy that we want to go on with as this organisation. Secondly, you are right: Offenders come from families, they do not drop from the sky.
Every weekend our facilities are full of people visiting and therefore we need communities out there to assist us because it can't be the department on its own. Those mothers and fathers, relatives, girlfriends, spouses and spinsters who visit must assist us to spice up the lives of those who are inside, so that when they go out, they are sweet enough for them. [Laughter.] We can't do it on our own. We need all hands on deck. It cannot be us as legislators; it has to be the communities who help us to do this.
Hon Le Roux, I am happy that you have approached it very well; you showed that there are deficiencies that you have pointed out. The first priority for us is the safe custody of offenders. It is a priority but we have to balance it with what we want to see when they get out because they will never be offenders for the rest of their lives. We have to do something about it.
I am not going to comment on the parole issue, and the former magistrate from the southern Cape. It will be really like that old analogy that when a dog bites you, you don't go down and bite it because the person passing by might not know between the two of you who is actually the dog. So, I will not get into that at all.
As jy s hulle het niks om te doen nie, sal ek nie s jy lieg nie, aangesien ek 'n agb lid van die Parlement is. Ek respekteer jou. Hulle doen iets. [If you say they have nothing to do I would not accuse you of lying, since I am an hon Member of Parliament. I respect you. They are doing something.]
In every place you find them doing something. So, please visit with me. I like the idea that Kgoshi has come up with. The invitation is for us to go to Johannesburg officials and say to them, "Go away, let's work here the whole day". The people of the legislature, let's work here and make sure that the RC, or whoever is in charge, whips us into shape.