Briefing by the Department of Correctional Services on APOPS; Kutama Sinthumule Maximum Security Prison; Mangaung Maximum Securi

Correctional Services

13 August 2002
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CORRECTIONAL SERVICES PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
13 August 2002
BRIEFING BY THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES ON APOPS; KUTAMA SINTHUMULE MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON; MANGAUNG MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON: BRIEFING BY SOUTH AFRICAN CUSTODIAL MANAGEMENT& GROUP 4 CORRECTION SERVICES
 


Chairperson: Mr Ntsiki Mashimbye (ANC)

Documents handed out:

Presentation by Department on APOPS
Presentation by South African Custodial Management
Presentation by Group 4 Correction Services

SUMMARY
The Committee was briefed on the running of the two private prisons, Mangaung Maximum Security Prison in Bloemfontein and Kutama - Sinthumule Maximum Security Prison in Louis Trichardt.

The Chairperson noted, with regard to APOPS (Asset Procurement of Privatisation System), that it advocated the creation of employment in the communities. He wanted to engage with the two companies about their experiences since they had set off to implement the contracting out of services that had traditionally been provided by the public sector. Given the lack of experience of such institutions the Committee needed to know whether they were working well.

Presentation by Department of Correctional Services
Mr Joe Maako: Director of APOPS, gave an overview of the current functioning of the APOPS prisons (please see attached presentation). He stated that, overall, the prisons were operating well and they had not as yet experienced any problems. He gave a briefing of the structure of both prisons: Mangaung Maximum Security Prison, Bloemfontein and Kutama - Sinthumule Maximum Security Prison, Louis Trichardt. The Director further touched on the issue of cost effectiveness, stating that it was the duty of the Controller to ensure that these prisons met the stipulated standard daily requirements. He indicated that that the APOPS did have an impact on the Department's budget since APOPS was not funded separately. He further stated that the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) had recently had a meeting with the Treasury and as a result had formed a unit to look into how they could assist DCS in funding the APOPS programme. The Director then commented on the overseeing mechanisms or bodies that had been put in place to monitor these APOPS, in particular the Controllers whose portfolio he outlined in detail.

Discussion
The Chair commented that as legislators and policy makers they should have, in the palms of their hands, knowledge as to how government policy is implemented and should also have a sense as to whether government policy was working or not. He therefore, posed the question whether, in the short experience they had had with the two private prisons, they thought that it would be appropriate to continue with them, do without them or fund more such prisons?

Mr Watson Tshivhase (Acting Commissioner of DCS) stated that there was a team consisting of officials of the Correctional Services, Treasury and Public Works Departments that had been assigned five tasks to look into. They had been given up to 13 September 2002 to finalise them and give the Committee a comprehensive presentation. He therefore felt that the question posed by the Chair could not be adequately answered. He could not say now as to whether or not the APOPS should be ended or not.

The Chair asked as to whether it was a fact that the DCS budget is almost entirely allocated to the APOPS prisons, how did this affect the DCS and could they find a solution to address this?

Mr Tshivhase stated that at present there was no indication of cost saving, but the increase in the budget allocation to the APOPS was due to the fact that the two prisons were now fully operational. The financial constraints they were currently facing were due to the fact that a treasury had not been established to reference APOPS, he hoped that once the survey had been completed the Treasury would see the need to fund the two prisons separately.

Ms E Ngaleka (ANC) asked when there would be a yardstick to measure cost effectiveness.

Mr NB Fihla (ANC) stated that in 1996 they had gone to Britain with a copy of this APOPS model. They had asked questions there on what the costs were of building such a prison and they had been advised that the cost was £19 million. They had also inquired about the annual expenditure and had been told that the cost was £12 million. Comparing the APOPS with the new prisons such as the one in Mumsberry, which is run by the state, how comparable were the costs?

Mr DV Bloem (ANC) asked whether the DCS could tell them what the cost of putting up these APOPS prisons was. Would it be cheaper for the Department to build the prisons or for the private companies to do so?

The Chair requested that all questions be answered at the end of the presentation meanwhile South African Custodial Management (Pty) Ltd was requested to proceed with their presentation.

Presentation by South African Custodial Management
Mr Stephan Korabie: South African Custodial Management (Pty) Ltd proceeded to give a briefing on the make up of the contracting entity (please see the attached presentation). It consisted of two parties Kensani Corrections and Wackenhut Corrections (Pty) ltd South Africa both parties holding a fifty -fifty share in the company. He stated that the South African Custodial Management had three subcontractors operating the contract these being the SACM which was responsible for operations, Kensani Correctional Management (Pty) Ltd responsible for maintenance, programmes and industries and Royal Corrections (Pty) Ltd which was responsible for Food services.

He then moved onto the Design and Construction stage of the Kutama Sinthumule Maximum Security Prison. Before the prison was built they needed to look into what they wanted to do and what they wanted out of the prison. The approach of the SACM was not to build a prison then decide thereafter what they wanted it to do. They had therefore wanted a prison that would serve the needs of the persons operating it and those incarcerated in it.

He then proceeded to look into the needs of society and government as well as those of the correctional staff and the prisoners as well from the prison, incorporating into this the present operations of the prison.

He further stated that they needed to make a distinction between the cost and the operations of the service. He stated that if they looked at the operational cost of their prison it was R81 per day though they also had to ask themselves what was the cost of the constitutional right of a person, humane care and the rehabilitation of a person.

The Chair then requested the Group 4 Correction Services SA (Pty) Ltd to give their presentation.

Presentation by Group 4 Correction Services SA
Mr Frikkie Venter: Acting Managing Director Group 4 Correction Services SA (Pty) Ltd, gave a brief overview of the company. Initially the biggest commercial security company, that is in over eighty countries employing over 235 000 people. In South Africa it has two companies and the security branch employs over 8500 people. He stated that the Group 4 Correctional Services SA was involved in prisons and other ventures in partnership with government. The Group 4 group was currently running eight prisons all over the world.

He then went on to state that their contract was with the Bloemfontein Correctional Contract (BCC).

He stated that a member of his team would present on an aspect of their structure and operations at the Mangaung Maximum Security Prison.

Mr Vusi Ngwenya: General Manager of BCC, stated that he would deal with the project structure, funding, securities, fee structure and how the project accelerated delivery of these services and mitigated the services provided by government.

BCC had a concession contract with DCS, which regulated the service levels that the operator had to carry out. BCC was therefore the main body that subcontracted the design and construction function and also the management operations. The design and construction was between Murray and Roberts and Fikile Projects. Group 4 runs the prison operation at Maugaung Maximum Security Prison as well as Vulindlela, which is involved in the running of the industry.

The project had to get funding from the private sector because for the fifteen months they were constructing government did not put any money into the prison until its completion. They also had sponsors such as Murray and Roberts and Group 4 who also provided funding to carry out the contract.

He stated that the design and construction was completed in March 2001 and they managed to train the staff in time for the opening in July 2001. He further stated that the most important factor was that lenders needed security for putting their funds into the project, they therefore, had to have performance guarantees from the sponsors and the operators. The Group 4 had to provide guarantees in case they defaulted or decided to go away and also government had to provide security in case they decided to terminate the contract. Generally the risk fell to persons who decided to terminate the contract or defaulted.

He further commented that the BCC only started to get funding from the DCS when they took occupancy of the prisons in July 2001 and they were only paid in accordance with the occupancy. The fee received in July 2001 was therefore equivalent to 300 prisoners despite the fact that they had full a staff complement and had started the training programmes. He further briefed Members on the fee structure, stating that it was split into two, the fixed component and the operations fee. The fixed fee catered for the loans, which they were paying back to the private lenders like the banks over a fifteen-year period. While the operations fee catered for interest and management fee. He further explained the project lifetime costs spread over twenty five years stating that over half went to operations, then they had taxes, management fees, bank fees and approximately 23% to service the debt.

Mr Tony Parker (Director Murray and Roberts) gave a briefing as outlined on the attached report of their role in the APOPS policy from the time of its implementation to the construction of the Mangaung Maximum Security Prison.

Mr Frikkie Venter (Acting Managing Director Group 4 Correction Services SA) then gave a report of the prison from June 2001. He stated that the key aspects were to deliver services as specified by Government. They had an obligation to deliver as the DCS employees monitored them and any breaches of contract would result in financial penalties. He then went on to outline the structure of Mangaung Maximum Security Prison as set out in the attached report.

Discussion
The Chair asked the DCS whether they had done anything about appointing the controller, as seemingly nothing had been done about it. He felt that the controllers were vital to the process as they were supposed to run a relationship with the institutions.

He further commented that the idea behind this meeting was that it was to be a learning process for all, though they were dealing with companies whose sisters had world-wide experience in this field. Here in South Africa this was a new experience.

He asked how rehabilitation programmes were evaluated in these private prisons and whether there had been any input by any of the trade unions interested in this sector. He asked whether private correctional officers could use deadly force in these prisons and what would happen in the event of a riot. He also wanted to know what would happen if the companies went bankrupt or failed to meet their contractual targets and what contractual incentives were given to private contractors operating in South Africa.

The Chair further posed the question as to whether the DCS had negotiated the liability of these private contractors and what was the responsibility of the DCS if an employee of these companies was sued in the course of their employment? Lastly he wanted to know what system was in place to properly monitor private prison operators from overcharging or claiming for services they had not rendered.

Ms E Ngaleka (ANC) wanted the DCS to elaborate on their comment that on two occasions a contractor had been penalised. She further wanted to know which two posts had been frozen, as stated by the DCS, due to the non-availability of funds. She also wanted to know what system these private prisons had in place to evaluate a prisoner's behaviour so as to ascertain as to whether the term should be lengthened or shortened.

She then commented on the remark that they needed to ensure that prisoners are kept in a humane situation and that their constitutional rights are upheld. She felt that they needed to balance the cost between the public and private prisons.

The Chair asked how they ensured that records did not go missing as they did in state prisons to the extent that a prisoners parole would be overlooked.

Mr Frikkie Venter responded to the Chair's last question, saying that there were certain things that private companies could not influence. One of these was parole. They could only recommend to the Government parole board that a prisoners was eligible for parole. It was a government function they would merely provide then with the report and the venue and some evidence. They could pick up that a person was due for consideration and this would be cross checked by their system, but this would normally be done out of consideration.

On the question of the shortening or lengthening of sentences, Mr Venter stated that in their system the credit system was not applied to its full impact. They did not discipline inmates, if a prisoner misbehaved they would have to report him to the Department who would discipline him in terms of the Act. He further stated that they did not use force. If they had information of a pre-planned riot then they would have to get permission from the controller.

Mr Stephan Korabie (SACM) stated that on the question of cost, the cost of operating the prison was determined by specifications laid out by government who would indicate the type of programmes, security systems, and medical care arrangements. They could not ask for anything that had not been costed. He further commented that it would be difficult to compare the costs of private prisons and those of the Correctional Services, because the Correctional Services prisons are overpopulated and the more overpopulated the lower the costs. In private prisons the population could not exceed 100% and if they exceeded 100%, they would have to increase per capita by 70%

Mr Bloem requested clarification on why the Kokstad prison cost R640 million to construct and only had a capacity for 1500 prisoners. The DCS was spending R97 per prisoner per day while the private prisons had been built at half the amount to cater for more prisoners and only required R81 per day per prisoner.

A representative of the DCS stated that the reason was that Kokstad was a supermax prison and therefore they had to spend more money to ensure maximum security for the troublesome prisoners housed there. The intention had been that these prisoners would not have to spend long in it, it was merely to deal with their behaviour and then transfer them to the other prisons.

Mr Frikkie Venter stated that on the issue of the system in place to monitor the contracts, their contracts specified that they had to keep prisoners occupied for forty hours a week and if they did not do so they would be penalised. Further, that if they falsified their records and this was picked up they would be penalised, he stated that there were therefore, huge financial implications if the private sectors did not provide the services they were contracted to provide.

A representative from Khensani Corrections Management further added that both the staff member and prisoner were required to record and sign for the activities done per day, so as to prevent falsification of records.

Mr Frikkie Venter stated that on the issue of liability of an employee, if the employee was acting within the scope of his job description the company would take on the cost.

Further on the question of how rehabilitation is evaluated, he stated that the effectiveness of their developmental programmes could only be evaluated when the prisoner left the prison. Though they did have a personal development plan for each prisoner, that they re-evaluate every six months, otherwise he felt it was difficult to say that a prisoner's behaviour in prison will depict how they will behave outside.

Mr Bloem stated that the DCS had presented to them a budget which stated that the private prisons were taking three-quarters of the budget. He was impressed with the presentations given by the private prisons and therefore felt that the Department should now show them exactly where the budget was going to. He pointed out that he had asked a specific question regarding the difference in spending on the private prisons and the spending done on some state run prisons.

Ms Ngaleka stated that on the health side of the prisons Group 4 had stated that there were two doctors and fourteen nurses. What was the ratio of nurse per prisoner? She further enquired whether they got to know the HIV status of the prisoners. What happened to prisoners who misbehaved?

Mr Frikkie Venter stated that they had one nurse per 500 prisoners but if needed she would refer them to the medical doctor. With regard to the HIV status of the prisoners, prisoners could approach them for tests and they would be done on an informed basis, but not all prisoners approached them so they did not have statistics. On the issue of misbehaving prisoners they could only approach the Department to deal with them. They could either remove them from their facility and place them at a supermax prison or other prisons, as these prisoners would be refusing to make use of the development opportunities availed to them. They should therefore make room for prisoners who wanted to better themselves.

The meeting was adjourned.

 

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