Thank you, Chairperson. In regard to rehabilitation, in order to fulfil the core business of the department, offenders must know that rehabilitation is the core business of the department. The Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services has taken the position that every offender should be rehabilitated. All offenders must accept that this is the core function of the department and its goal.
When the committee visited the centres, the most important aspect of the visit was to emphasise education as a means of acquiring knowledge. All those offenders who think that they're going to get free meals without being educated and freeing themselves for future purposes will be disappointed. Centres are not hotels. Offenders must bear in mind that they should use their time to be educated so that they will be rehabilitated and be prepared for the future.
The IFP is strongly opposed to giving parole to crooks - izinswelaboya. Those offenders who solicited money by the wrong means and were found guilty should by no means be pardoned. The offenders we give pardon to should be those who are serving sentences of less than three years for what they have done. Rapists, murderers, crooks and car-heist offenders - izinswelaboya - should by no means be pardoned. [Laughter.] You know who I am talking about. The police work very hard to arrest these people and prosecute them - they work under very difficult circumstances. We cannot just let them go free because we think they should go free.
The IFP sympathises with those offenders who are very sick and who have been certified by doctors as being really sick. They can be allowed to go home under strict conditions. Terminally ill offenders cannot become boxers and golf players when they are in prison or in centres, and then players when they are out of the centres! [Laughter.]
The department should fight corruption by its members, no matter what their position. Staff members who are corrupt must be fired with immediate effect, Minister. It is corruption to promote a member because of favours. It's corruption to extend the contract of a service provider without following proper procedures. That is corruption! It is corruption to use offenders without giving them any benefit whatsoever. We have to stop corruption whenever and wherever it takes place.
This department is at the tail end of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster. Therefore the planning of the department should be such that it has a good budget. We should also bear in mind that we are working with human resources - we are not working with things, but with people. Therefore the right people for the budget should be acquired at the end of the day. This leads me to the dilapidated buildings and to not having proper equipment to safeguard offenders. Staff and offenders should feel safe while they are in the centres. Members of staff must enjoy coming to work because of the environment they work in, and their equipment should be in order so that they are able to do the work properly.
Relations between the Judicial Inspectorate and the department must be improved. The reports forwarded to the department by the inspectorate must be done timeously and using good resources, because nobody must just do as they want. [Inaudible.] The committee cannot allow members of staff to do as they want while they are employed by the department. Any corrupt official must be dealt with immediately without fear or favour.
The last point, Chairperson, before you say my time is finished, is the seven-day establishment. I hope the department has come to an agreement about the seven-day establishment. If not, something has to be done, because the committee will not allow the abuse of power and sick leave by staff members just because the agreement has not been finalised. This goes together with the vetting of staff members who are employed by the department. The department must work very hard to overcome these problems. I thank you, Chairperson.
The Deputy Minister of correctional Services: Hon Chairperson; hon Minister of Correctional Services; hon chairperson and members of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services; Judge Tshabalala, Inspecting Judge of Correctional Services; Judge Desai, chairperson of the National Council on Correctional Services, and members of the council; Commissioner Tom Moyane and officers of the department; all invited guests; esteemed members of the media; comrades and friends, even across the Table; allow me to join the multitudes who have dipped their banners to salute the late Nyanda and Chabaku, who in their life and death epitomise the resilience of the indomitable spirit of our people. In saluting them I salute all the heroines, the mothers of our country, who continue to bravely soldier on in the quest to make South Africa a better and safer place than yesterday.
As we pass the midterm of this administration, it is appropriate that we report today on the work done so far and indicate that the Correctional Services plans tabled in Parliament this year focus on the implementation of various initiatives taken under the leadership of Minister Mapisa- Nqakula.
The logic of the mandate of Correctional Services is premised on three legs: remand detention, correctional incarceration and social reintegration. The first and last have been delegated to me, hence they are the focus of my address today.
Regarding the management of remand detention, we have taken the significant step of proclaiming, through publication in the Government Gazette of 27 February 2012, 26 dedicated remand detention facilities across the country, and 109 centres have been authorised to establish remand detention sections with effect from 1 March 2012.
The department must lay the basis for effective resource and infrastructure planning for remand detention - by generating accurate statistics on the bed space allocated to remand detention; by developing an appropriate staffing model for remand detention facilities; by submitting dedicated budget estimates for the remand detention function; and by focusing on performance measurement in relation to remand detention.
To map the location of the remand detention facilities and remand detention sections vis--vis the location of courts and to balance the court caseload with the capacity of remand detention facilities, cluster co-operation is critical to enhancing compliance with our Constitution and other legal prescripts for the effective management of remand processes.
The draft White Paper on Remand Detention has been extensively edited and submitted to the Minister for approval and for external consultation, including consultation with the portfolio committee. In essence, this White Paper states government's long-term vision of remand detention as a distinct function, governed by different constitutional and international instrument imperatives from those that govern correctional incarceration and community corrections.
Some of the principal policy positions in the draft White Paper have already been embedded in legislation in the Correctional Matters Amendment Act. However, it is necessary for the department to have a single strategic policy document that codifies the long-term vision, so that managers who work in this field have a constant lodestar to refer to. The draft White Paper is the result of the past six years of focused work on the challenges of managing remand detention in South Africa.
The department has been working on the remand detention organisational structure, with the funding and filling of posts in the approved Head Office Remand Detention Branch already started. The departmental restructuring project will take on the process, with draft remand detention organisational structures - for regions, management areas and remand detention facilities - already developed. A national workshop on the draft remand detention organisational structures was held at the end of February 2012 with department regions and remand detention centres.
Remand detention is now a distinct budget subprogramme enabling the focused resourcing of this function. As per the Estimates of National Expenditure, an indicative figure for the remand detention subprogramme is R618 million. [Interjections.] Is that Mr Mnguni? He was struggling to get through his speech. The head office branch allocation is R11,4 million for the compensation of personnel, goods and services, payment of capital assets and contract obligations. The regional allocation for the compensation of employees, R33,5 million, covers the 2 789 employees working in the demarcated remand detention facilities. The bulk of the budget allocation will be utilised for the services that the department is obliged to provide to remand detainees. The department is currently in the process of determining the budget estimates going forward.
The criminal justice system review process has significance for the department, in particular for the management of remand detention. In the past year, the CJS review team has been instrumental in the development of two protocols, namely the protocol on the maximum incarceration periods for remand detainees and the protocol on the referral of terminally ill or severely incapacitated remand detainees to court. This is to enable the department to put sections 49E and 49G of the Correctional Matters Amendment Act of 2011 into operation.
However, hon members will recall that these two sections of the Amendment Act have not as yet been promulgated, since their promulgation is dependent on a number of factors ... [Interjections.]