Minister on Department Budget

It is once again my pleasure to appear before you today to present plans on how we intend to expend the budget which we have requested for the 2003/2004 financial year and which request we sincerely hope will meet with your favourable consideration. When you consider our submission, cognisance of the fact that we are working in a unique social environment as a Department should be taken.

It is significant that our Departmental Budget Vote takes place at this time when we observe Children's Protection Week throughout the country. There were 208 children in our prisons as of March 2003.

These children are no lesser human beings and therefore deserve to be accorded decent treatment and should be placed under conditions which respect their human rights and guaranteeing their safety and protection. We have to acknowledge the fact that they will not be in prison for long, therefore we have to create conditions in prison which are as close to the outside world as possible.

We therefore try to give them access to external crèches where conditions are conducive to sound physical, social and mental care and development. The provision for a child to be with the mother in prison for up to five years may need to be revisited as this may be too tender an age for such a child to be released to a strange new world.

Prisons in many ways have become dumping grounds for society's unwanted and those that are believed to be untamed. Research shows that a significant number of prisoners enter prisons with mental health and other medical problems. A high proportion of prisoners lack even basic literacy skills. Because of lack of resources many of these problems are not adequately tackled within the prison environment.

Indeed, the evidence suggests that incarceration makes things worse. For example, illicit drug implications for HIV transmission both inside and outside prisons. Similarly, if prisoners do not add to their legitimate skills whilst inside, they are unlikely to get a job on release.

This situation reinforces a cycle of marginalisation and re-offending as well as attitudes and policies that bar them from entering the labour market.

It is precisely within this context that in the past financial year, our Department endeavoured to develop a common understanding of rehabilitation, and began to develop the processes through which it can be achieved.

Despite the challenges that we face as a Department, we are proud of the advances that we made and the gains we had through the assistance and support of the Honourable Members of the two Parliamentary Committees and other partners in society within the limited resources at our disposal.

The Department's budgetary allocation for the 2003/2004 financial year amounts to R 7.6 billion and provides for an establishment of 36 320 personnel and operational costs for a daily average offender population of 183 000 prisoners and 70 000 probationers and parolees. This represents a total increase of 9.25% on the total adjustment allocation of R 7,02 billion for the 2002/2003 financial year.

The Budget for Rehabilitation increases by an average of 8,3 per cent per annum from R264,8 million in 1999/00 to R427,5 million in 2005/06. Over the medium term the growth of the programme slows, owing to the pressure on the Vote of a rising prisoner population.

Most of the increase is due to administrative expenditure, which will nearly double from R14,6 million in 2002/03 to R27,9 million in 2003/04, and is expected to increase further to R31,5 million in 2005/06.

The latest available figures indicate that our current prison population stands at 187,748 as of March 2003. This figure comprises 58,144 unsentenced prisoners and 131,604 sentenced prisoners. Our current prison capacity stands at 110,874, meaning that we are overpopulated by 78,874 or 71.1%.

A total of 22 360 offenders were trained during 2002 in a variety of skills related to the workshop, building and agricultural fields. The establishment of 12 training centres of the planned 14 Training centres has already been completed. These centres are aimed at the promotion of Occupational Skills Training, in which artisan status cannot be obtained but specialized training is required.

It is aimed at equipping offenders with basic technical skills in a variety of fields such as brick making, brick laying, woodwork, welding, garment making, etc. Business skills training is also provided in order to equip individuals with skills to operate their own small businesses.

The Department made enormous gains in developing a better understanding of its role in the implementation of Restorative Justice as part of rehabilitation and this led to a joint Conference on Restorative Justice: 'From Theory to Implementation' led by the Department of Justice and various activities including joint training sessions conducted by officials from Canada who are regarded as leaders in the implementation of this approach.

Our poverty alleviation programmes and the inclusion of victims or their representatives in our parole system seeks to promote and operationalise this concept and facilitate the process of healing and restitution.

A demonstration of our success in this regard is that in pushing back the frontiers of poverty, the Department engaged in a number of poverty alleviation projects to the value of R496 239 in the past financial year. However, the biggest value we achieved is engaging offenders in projects that had a direct benefit to the community through agricultural and building projects.

The Moral Regeneration Movement and the work of the Social Cluster of Government in strengthening social cohesion and promoting social justice will make a major contribution to the Department's rehabilitation and correction efforts both through guiding ethical values to those already convicted, and ensuring the revival of the South African ethos and ethic of Ubuntu in our communities.

Our social partners are also doing their best in advancing our course in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders, albeit limited.

The President's Award programme, a self-development programme available to young offenders equipping them with life skills to make a difference to themselves, their communities and their world, forms part of Rehabilitation programmes for young offenders in the Department. It is a holistic programme that aims to promote the social, psychological and physical well being of young people in our country. A President's Award Gold Ceremony was hosted in Grahamstown on 07 July 2002.

During this prestigious event the former President Dr Nelson Mandela, who is the Patron-in-chief, handed Gold Awards to 110 young offenders who successfully participated in the programme. The involvement of the President's Award in young offender programmes has played a significant role in seeing young people in conflict with the law being successfully reintegrated into society.

In South Africa, it started at St Albans prison in Port Elizabeth in 1994 with 14 offenders. To date some 20 000 young offenders have been through the programme.

The R 552,9 million allocated for Incarceration provides for the humane detention of prisoners in safe custody until they are lawfully released.

The programme also covers the health care and physical needs of prisoners to comply with national and international norms and standards on the treatment of offenders. This accounts for 46% of the total budget over the MTEF period which ends in 2005/2006.

It is projected that expenditure will increase due to the envisaged increases in operating costs, including the appointment of additional personnel caused by projected increases in the prisoner population.

Health and Physical Care expenditure is also expected to rise due to an increased provision for prisoner primary health and dental care to counter the spread of opportunistic infections in prisons, including HIV and AIDS.

We however welcome the initiatives from our partners, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Emory University, USA. These organisations have recently completed a survey on health issues in prisons in the post-apartheid era. I am certain that Government and the whole country are waiting in anticipation of their findings in this regard.

Government is equally anxious to get the planned HIV/AIDS Prevalence and Attitude Survey to be undertaken by the Department taking off the ground.

This information will be valuable in aiding decision-making and facilitating the implementation of our HIV/AIDS Strategy amongst personnel and offenders. It is envisaged that this exercise will be completed twelve months from now.

As a result of the successful implementation of Unit Management which is an effective strategy to reduce prison violence and to control gang activity, we have succeeded in managing the incidents of violence and unnatural deaths in prison.

Over and above the safety of offenders, the Department is also committed to reinforce delivery on secure facilities and the prevention of escapes. This is not only an integral part of the purpose of the correctional system, but it is also a prerequisite for the rehabilitation process. In general, the Department was quite successful in bringing down the number of escapes compared to previous years.

However due to one unfortunate incident at Bizana prison, in the Eastern Cape in December 2002 where 98 offenders escaped during an evacuation operation as a result of a serious fire threat, there was an increase in the number of escapes from 223 in 2001/2002 to 281 in 2002/2003. The Department views escapes in a very serious light in discharging its security function.

In addition to raising awareness on the seriousness of this matter among personnel, it also takes serious disciplinary steps against those staff members who are found guilty of aiding escapes.

Spending on Community Corrections will grow on average by only 3,9 per cent from R258,8 million in 2002/03 to R290,5 million in 2005/06.

This will relieve some of the pressure on Incarceration and relief on overcrowding as well as reducing the cost of the Vote, as Community Corrections involves cheaper sentencing options. Expenditure on this programme depends on the capacity within the Department to administer Community Corrections, and the application of these sentencing options by courts and Parole Boards.

The Department of Correctional Services is encouraging alternative sentencing options within the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) Cluster and the enhancement of service delivery to parolees and probationers which will have a major impact on expenditure in future.

The challenge that faces the Department in relation to community corrections is to enhance the rehabilitation, correction and development aspects of the correctional supervision in order for it to be seen as a viable alternative sentencing option.

As can be deduced from the prison population figures which I referred to earlier, overcrowding has a negative effect on our operations as it impacts on staff morale due to unacceptable working conditions, the health of offenders, effective safe custody and the ability of the Department to allocate resources effectively for rehabilitation of offenders, and results in abnormally high maintenance costs of prison facilities.

However, we are encouraged with the allocation of R 900,6 million for our capital works projects. This figure provides for the construction of four new facilities with a capacity of 3000 each within this MTEF period. These projects are expected to begin later this year and it is envisaged that they will be operational by the 2005/2006 financial year. These will be the first batch of prisons that would be in accordance with the "New Generation" low cost affordable prison design I unveiled in August 2002.

The budget allocation provides for an amount of R 492,9 million (6,4%) for the financing of the operational costs of the two (2) privately operated prisons (5 952 beds) which are managed under the Asset Procurement and Operating Partnership Systems (APOPS) as a Public Private Partnership.

To promote the effective governance and administration of the Department the budget allocation provides for personnel expenditure which amounts to R4,9 billion for personnel salaries.

Over the medium term this category of expenditure continues to dominate due to the labour-intensive nature of our operations.

Our people, Correctional Officials and Management are a valuable resource in the delivery of our services. Correctional Services is a people business. We therefore need people in order for us to be effective.

In conclusion, I wish to emphasise that rehabilitation requires that the relationship between correctional officials trained in the social professions such as social work, psychology, nursing, pharmacology, health, and theology, and the broader category of non-specialised correctional officials must be one of co-operation, empowerment and teamwork. The multi-skilling of all our personnel is a matter of urgency.

These challenges brought about by the renewed paradigm and emphasis on Correction and Rehabilitation mean that the Department needs, more than ever before, to poise itself for extensive staff training, for recruitment of new personnel and for the retention of existing staff.

Personnel need to be capacitated with skills that will enable them to transcend concentrating on incarceration and deliver security, rehabilitation, correction and development as an integral package.

An elaboration of the issues which I have raised in my briefing to you today will be found in the Budget Vote Speech which I shall deliver in the House in Friday. That speech will include some other issues which I have not been able to raise today.

Priorities for the year ahead will include:

• The completion of the White Paper
• The establishment and functioning of the Parole Boards
• The intense implementation of rehabilitation under the following programmes:
  • Corrections
  • Development
  • Care
  • Security
  • Facilities
  • After Care

• The training and retraining of personnel following the restructuring transformation of the department.
• Conducting an HIV/Aids prevalence survey
• Starting the construction of the New Generation Prisons
• Enhancing collaboration with all our partners nationally and internationally as well as to formalize our links through policy.

These are just but some of the challenges that we are going to tackle within this MTEF period with your assistance and support and with the limited resources at our disposal.

I thank You.