Progress on Building of Prisons: briefing

Meeting report

CORRECTIONAL SERVICES PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
2 September 2003
PROGRESS ON BUILDING OF PRISONS: BRIEFING

Chairperson:

Building of New Prisons - Department of Correctional Services

SUMMARY
The committee was briefed on the building of new prisons in South Africa. The Department was keen to elaborate on the reasons justifying the need for more prisons. The most obvious being the gross overcrowding currently taking place in South African prisons. It was also evident that South Africa needed to keep up with the worldwide trend towards a new generation of prisons focusing on the rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates into society.

A breakdown was also given on the Department's new approach in the issuing of procurement tenders and how it would facilitate the process of Black Economic Empowerment. The decision for the commencement of the building of the new prisons was however placed on hold pending the outcome of a feasibility study. An intense discussion ensued over discrepancies in the cost of building the new prisons. The committee asked the Department to address the issue at their next meeting.

MINUTES
Building of New Prisons
The Department of Correctional Services briefed the committee on the building of new prisons. Mr M Sokupa, Director of Building Services duly assisted by Mr M Louw and Mr Mlombile conducted the briefing.

Prior to the commencement of the briefing, Mr Mlombile wished to inform the Committee that the building of the new prisons was not the direct responsibility of the Department but that it would be spearheaded by the Department of Public Works. A service level agreement existed between the two Departments in order foster greater transparency.

Mr Sokupa initiated the briefing by firstly identifying the various categories of inmates that necessitated the need for the building of new prisons. Amongst the categories identified were children, women, disabled persons, the aged and mentally ill persons. The new prisons would specifically cater for the previously mentioned categories of incarcerated persons whilst at the same time ensuring the safety and security of the public.

The new prisons would be in line with the Department's renewed vision of rehabilitation as opposed to mere incarceration. Inmates would have the opportunities to participate in a variety of programmes to empower themselves. Amongst the programmes on offer were carpentry classes and agricultural techniques. Mr Sokupa however did make the point that the new prisons were primarily being built to address the overcrowding in existing prisons for medium and low risk inmates.

The Department was jointly engaged with the Department of Public Works in the design of the new prisons. The aim was to come up with a prototype design that could be duplicated wherever the need arose to build a prison. Mr Sokupa said that the Department had also adopted a new approach to the granting of tenders for the construction of the prisons. In the past, the construction of the prisons would be allocated to a single contractor being Murray and Roberts who would in turn sub-contract to smaller empowerment contractors. The Department had since adopted a new approach to the granting of tenders. The entire construction process would be broken up into various parts and smaller contractors would be directly contracted to the Department of Public Works. The entire process would be co-ordinated by the Joint Building Contracts Committee (JBCC).
The process for the building of the new prisons was presently in flux. Even though the Department of Finance had already allocated the funding for the project, the Minister of Finance had requested that a feasibility comparison be done of past methods of procurement with that of the new approach. In view of the fact that the building of the new prisons was long overdue, the Department had proposed to do the feasibility comparison whilst at the same time commencing with the building projects for the new prisons. The Department was still awaiting a response to their proposal from the Department of Finance.

Please refer to attached presentation.

Discussion:
Mr D Bloem (ANC) asked if it was correct that the Minister of Finance was delaying the process. He asked if Cabinet had not been informed on the process.

Mr Sokupa pointed out that discussions were taking place with the Department of Finance
in order to allow the building of the prisons to commence whilst the feasibility comparison was being done.The two could run parallel to one another.

The Chair felt that the Department should be influential in directing the Department of Public Works on procurement policies.

He was sceptical as to whether it was a good idea to continue with the building of the prisons whilst the feasibility comparison was ongoing.

The Chair remarked that he would have liked some detail about the tendering process. It was important for the committee to scrutinize black procurement policies.

Mr Sokupa pointed out that the feasibility study was in progress. He noted that the Department had met all requirements that were expected of them. The feasibility comparison had been at the request of National Treasury. He emphasised that it had been requested after the go-ahead had been given for the construction of the new prisons.

The Department was following a Construction Management Approach on the tendering process.

A manager would be appointed to correlate the activities of the various small contractors. The Department would also offer programmes and workshops to assist small contractors in the performance of their specific projects.

Mr Sokupa noted that the Department of Public Works would be better equipped to provide the committee with detail on the tendering process.

Mr J Durand (NNP) asked the following questions:
- Would Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) would be taken into account in the procurement process.
-If alternatives other than incarceration had been considered for medium and low risk inmates such as community service
-He felt that the incarceration of foreign nationals was a waste of taxpayers money. They should be extradited to their countries of origin to serve out their sentences.
-Mr Durand asked if inmates could be used as part of the labour force in the building of the new prisons.


Mr Sokupa said that BEE was critical to the procurement process. He commented that a steering committee met fortnightly to discuss BEE and the procurement process.
He felt hesitant to comment on alternatives to incarceration, as it was not within his field of expertise.
Mr Mlombile reacted that the Department was well aware of alternatives to incarceration. He was however sceptical as to whether practical alternatives to incarceration would be implemented in the short term. Having said this he nevertheless noted that discussions were ongoing with the judiciary to find alternatives to imprisonment. Mr Mlombile remarked that South Africa was not yet fully equipped for alternatives like correctional supervision.

Mr Louw said that illegal immigrants were being deported by the Department of Home Affairs. Mr Mlombile noted that the issue was complex. In order to extradite serious foreign offenders proper extradition treaties needed to exist between South Africa and foreign countries.

Mr Sokupa noted that inmates were involved in prison skills creation programmes
relating to the manufacture of clothes,bags etc.

Mr Bloem pointed out that inmates could not be forced into labour. It was however
acceptable if they volunteered to work.

Bishop L Tolo (ANC) asked what the total cost of using consultants was. What was meant by prototype prisons.

Mr Sokupa said that consultants' fees structures were based on the contract sum and paid between five to eight percent of the contract sum. Remuneration amounts also depended on the work done by the consultant.

Mr Sokupa explained that in the past prisons were designed and built individually. The fact that they all differed also meant that the cost of building them also varied. The Department needed uniformity in the design of prisons so that there would only be a once-off design cost. This single design would be duplicated to wherever a prison needed to be built.

The Chair asked Mr Sokupa's view on the comparison of past procurement methods with those now envisaged by the Department.

Mr Sokupa said that he would prefer not to speculate. He would wait for the outcome of the feasibility study. Both approaches had pros and cons.

Mr Mlombile said that the new approach aimed to correct the mistakes made in the past.

The Chair noted that in a previous briefing the Department had estimated the building costs for the new prisons to be R350m. He asked if the figure was correct.

Mr Sokupa answered that the cost would roughly be R210m. In the previous briefing the cost had been estimated at R150m and not R350m as was stated by the Chair.

The Chair asked why had the cost increased from R150m to R210m which was an increase of R60m.

Mr Sokupa pointed out that Mr Paul Da Silva, the American consultant who had computed the previous cost amount had not considered other additional necessary costs in his calculations. Thus the shortfall of R60m.

Mr Mlombile said that the Department's Accounting Officer had detected the shortfall of R60m in the forecasted expenditure.

The Chair was notably upset that taxpayers money had been squandered by the Department on consultant's whose work was not up to scratch. He asked for a detailed explanation on the discrepancy over the two amounts. He strongly felt that government should be accountable for any wrongful expenditure.

Mr Bloem shared the Chair's sentiments and asked how much the Department had paid the consultant, who had made the mistake. He asked for a proper explanation.

The issue could not be further pursued due to time constraints.

The committee agreed that the issue should be properly addressed at the following meeting.The Department agreed.

The meeting was adjourned.