Chairperson, in his state of the nation addresses in 2005 and again in 2006, the then President, Thabo Mbeki, announced that eight new-generation prisons would be constructed to alleviate overcrowding and to provide the Department of Correctional Services with a better opportunity to correct offending behaviour and to rehabilitate offenders. Four years and seven months after the first announcement only one new- generation prison is nearing completion and that one has been delayed by one and a half years.
The prison construction saga has been a chapter of mismanagement. Prison specifications and plans were drawn up and then withdrawn; money was appropriated for their construction and then returned to the Treasury; sites were identified and then abandoned; site works for the Nigel and Leeuwkop facilities were commenced and then discontinued.
In 2007, the then Minister of Correctional Services, Ngconde Balfour, announced that prisons would be constructed and run by the private sector by way of a public-private partnership. Shortly after taking office, the current Minister announced that she was reviewing this decision in order to establish whether we would get "value for money". This, after the Treasury had already established that public-private partnerships were the most cost- effective option and after a number of consortia had already submitted tenders for the business at considerable cost.
We, in the committee, heard yesterday that 19 correctional centres accommodate in excess of double the number of inmates they were designed for. We need to get on with the construction of these prisons as a matter of urgency. To delay or, worse still, to abandon this process will irreparably damage the credibility of government. We have wasted enough time and money already. A decision to go ahead must be made and made fast. [Applause.]