(Sub-Committee) Correctional Services Interventions/Rescue Plans; with Deputy Minister

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Justice and Correctional Services

05 March 2021
Chairperson: Mr R Dyantyi (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Sub-Committee received a briefing in a virtual meeting from the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) on interventions and rescue plans, focusing on key areas. There had been specific issues since 2019, and the Department was being given a chance in the meeting to explain why no significant progress had been made on these problem areas so that the Committee and the Department could be on the same page. The Committee wanted to come to a particular conclusion on the matters, not just speak about them.

The key areas which came under scrutiny were the correctional facilities infrastructure, the rehabilitation of inmates, progress on the implementation of the audit action plans, measures to improve financial and supply chain management controls, consequence management, progress on the Integrated Inmate Management System, the filling of vacancies and human resources challenges, and the impact of COVID-19 on the Department’s key focus areas.

Members of the Committee were generally highly critical of the Department’s presentation. They pointed out that despite its dependence on consultants, there had been little transfer of skills; irregular expenditure no longer evoked shock, but seemed to be a normal occurrence in the DCS; the report on the progress and status of the parole system was inadequate; the poor condition of facilities in all aspects of rehabilitation and correctional activities hampered effective correction, with only 15 of 240 standards conforming to the requirements of the new generation design; and COVID-19 was being touted as an excuse for most of its shortcomings, which was unacceptable.

 

Meeting report

Chairperson’s introduction
The Chairperson provided context for the meeting, stating that the Committee was dealing with specific items of concern, and had asked the Department to prepare on those specific items, and return to the Committee and present on them. He commended their timeous return of the presentation, although there had been one setback which would be explained later.

There had been these specific issues since 2019, and Mr Selfe would have the institutional memory as he had been with the Committee for a long time. They were being given a chance in the meeting to explain why no significant progress had been made on these problem areas so that the Committee and the Department could be on the same page. The Committee wanted to come to a particular conclusion on the matters, not just speak about them. He asked that in their presentation, they prioritise the following: their HR critical skills and post issues presentation; their IMMS presentation and their action plan on the audit plans.

Deputy Minister on key focus areas

Inkosi Patekile Holomisa, Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, acknowledged that the Committee had requested that the Department engage with them on measures that had been put in place to ensure that critical skills were acquired, and to provide an indication of the status of consequence management in the Department. The Committee had expressed concern on issues emanating from previous audit reports from the Auditor-General (AG) on various areas of financial accounting and management, as well as compliance with laws and regulations shortfalls which had, among others, resulted in the Department incurring irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

The Department would provide clarity on efforts that were being undertaken to implement action plans that were addressing previous audit findings, including interventions to improve financial and supply chain management (SCM) controls, as well as consequences that had been accepted in instances where internal controls policies and procedures had been flouted. The Committee had also raised the matter of delays in the implementation of the Integrated Inmate Management System (IMMS), infrastructure projects, and backlogs in the parole system. The Department would provide insight as to the status of all items, and possibly provide comfort as to the efforts that were being employed in these challenging fiscal and health circumstances.

Critical and scarce skills posts

On the matter of acquiring critical and scarce skills posts, he needed to give context in terms of budget cuts, but the prevailing situation was that the Department was a labour-intensive organisation, operated on a 24-hour daily basis, with a total field post establishment of 38 829, of which 32 034 posts account for Correctional Centre-based officials, whilst the remaining 6 695 were officials in categories of professional and support services. Of the 32 034, a minimal 1 829 were responsible for social reintegration through community corrections. The remaining 30 205 were divided into two divisions, -- Division A and Division B, in equal numbers of 15 102 officials -- to take care of custodial activities, internal and external security. This number was not enough to effectively manage custodial duties due to a multiplicity of reasons, among which were shift items which contributed to a further reduction of available resources at any given time to provide security and other custodial intervention services.

National Treasury’s cut of the compensation of employees (CoE) budget of R895 million in October 2020 would continue throughout the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) periods at a rate of R2.6 billion, R3.5 billion and R4.7 billion respectively, and would inevitably have dire consequences on the future of the Department. It had on average lost 1 600 officials through termination of service due to deaths, resignations, retirement, dismissals and transfers to other departments.

The projected budget cuts had the implication of reducing more than 10 000 posts over the next three years. This could mean that the Department would not have the budget to remunerate currently employed officials whilst it continued to lose personnel. The current situation was worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, and had forced the Department to declare a moratorium on the filling of all posts during level 5 to level 3 of the national lockdown, and allowing only 50% of employees during the subsequent levels to return to the workplace with a view to prevent widespread infection of the staff complement.

The rate of filling Correctional Service based officials with entrants from outside the system was affected by the occupation specific dispensation, which the Department was required to comply with, in line with Resolution 2 of 2009 of the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC), which required correctional officers to undergo the Correctional Services Learnership Programme before being employed as core phase officials of the Department. Consequently, when higher non-senior management service (SMS) posts in the security or community corrections became vacant, they could not be filled by external candidates except by DCS officials who had undergone the requisite training.

The effect of the CoE budget cut had negative implications for the filling of entry level posts by learners who had completed the programme. Currently there were 1 090 learners who had completed their training in December 2020 and were waiting to be declared competent and certified by the Safety and Security Services Sector Education Training Authority (SETA). Due to the cuts in the current year's adjusted budget, there was an inability to offer them full-time employment as officials. Similarly, there were 925 learners who had completed training in March 2020 and had been on contracts which were due to expire at the end of this month, but the further cuts in finalising the next financial year’s national compensation baseline commencing in April would not only hamper their ability to employ the learners, but their ability to recruit in general. 

The Department had previously filled vacancies for entry level posts with learners from both the DCS learnership programme and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). This would be an impossibility going forward.

On the perception of the Department preferring to employ SANDF employees over absorbing learners who had been trained in their learnership programme, the facts were that learnership contracts were youth developmental programme contracts, which was in line with the GPSSEC Resolution of 2009 clause 12.1, which stipulates that learnership contracts must terminate. The last learnership contracts had ended in December 2020. Notwithstanding the above, in the past the learners were offered an employment contract at the end of the learnership contract, which was attributed to the fact that the Department always had vacancies at the production level which were budgeted for. Prior to 2020, it was envisaged that there was going to be a staff shortfall of 4 000 in addressing the projected shortage. The Department had taken a decision, through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the SANDF, to appoint 2 000 SANDF youth. The other 2 000 posts were reserved for the absorption of learners upon completion of the learnership programmes in December 2020 and March 2021. These decisions were based on the fact that they had undergone internal training and only needed a shortened additional training to meet the appointment requirements in the DCS, which was seen as a cost-effective approach whilst also creating employment for the youth. Organised labour had been consulted regarding this approach and did not object to it, as they were equally concerned about staff shortages at the production level.

In October 2020, the adjusted estimates of national expenditure were announced, resulting in a cut in the COE budget of the Department, where there were funds available for the youth employment initiative. There was now a projected overspending on compensation of up to approximately R280 million. At this point, the Department had employed 1 079 SANDF reserves and was awaiting the completion of 1 019 learners from the internal programme. This sudden change to the DCS financial outlook had created a situation where it could not continue to employ those remaining in service and still qualify learners.

On the status of vacancies, at the level of Senior Management Service (SMS), with a total of 216 posts, 56 were vacant as of January 2021. The majority of vacancies (41) were at director level. This layer of senior management was closest to operations and was instrumental in ensuring implementation of policies and procedures. With medical professionals, the Department had a total of 2 232 who were either permanent or on contract.

A total of 609 medical personnel were on contract, which amounted to 27% of the total. These professionals consisted of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists and social workers, who were all key to providing offenders with rehabilitation and care. At a cursory level, the number would suggest that given an offender population of approximately 140 000 sentenced and unsentenced offenders, the ratio of medical professionals to offenders was one to 230. This was wholly inadequate. The budget was reducing the current available resources by 27%, whilst the offender population was not envisaged to reduce at the same rate, and the Department was struggling to deliver services currently. The Department had various occupation specific dispensations, which included artisans, educationists, engineers, environmental officers, legal officers, religious practitioners as well as medical practitioners. The total establishment for these OSD posts was 3 332, of which 560 were vacant.

Department service regulation 40D stated that an executive authority must, before filling any vacancy, ensure that sufficient budgeted funds, including funds for the remaining period of the MTEF, were available for filling posts. It would be difficult to fill posts as the budget cuts going forward would be even greater than experienced in the current financial year.

Minister Holomisa said it was possible that the Department may not be able to afford its current staff complement, even if the budget were to absorb the impact of budget cuts with service termination posts, as the projections were that posts to the value of R22 billion were by far more than the posts that would be vacated through service terminations. Further implications of budget cuts were:

the possibility of non-payment of incentives such as pay progression and performance bonuses, leading to a low morale;
slow achievement of employment equity targets, including youth and women and persons with disabilities to SMS posts;
the need to match some functions and roles;
an increase in litigation labour unrest and unhealthy labour relations;
heightened security risks -- custodial and escort duties, inability to prevent or mitigate escapes, and riots or unrest;
inability to implement an ideal shift system which would increase over time;
challenges in achieving strategic outcomes and outputs in the strategic plan and annual performance plans of the Department; and
demoralisation of employees as a result of an anticipated increase in workload.

Having considered all the matters, the Department still had to chart a way forward against these challenges. The Department had adopted a two-phased approach to manage the vacancy situation. Phase one was that of the 2020/21 financial year. They were in constant consultation with organised labour on the impact of a shrinking budget. They had declared a moratorium on the filling of all vacant posts including those earmarked for SANDF. They had prioritised the filling of coalface posts, such as those under incarceration and community corrections. They had stopped payments of 100% overtime and additional standard allowances that were related to COVID-19 allowances. They had maintained a consistent approach in abolishing posts, in consultation with branch heads and regional commissioners to identify both to the value of the budget. They were honouring contractual obligations in terms of current warm bodies on the payroll. Where possible, they had considered officials of the equivalent salary level to act in vacant posts. Lastly, branch heads and regional commissioners were facilitating change in reporting lines where line management posts were affected, to ensure business continuity under phase two, which was for the period 2021/22.

They had established an education committee comprising of the deputy commissioners from each branch and region, whose main purpose would be to determine posts to be filled, based on criticality and availability of funds. The committee was focusing on the training of head office and regional office staff in line with the service delivery model, through a re-deployment process which identified educational functions and posts, both permanent and contractual. They would reassess the filling of posts where employees were retiring when considering their reprioritisation of funding.

They were considering not filling vacant posts occasioned by natural attrition, which included effective posts, as a result of resignations and death. They would not renew employment contracts upon expiry, except those recommended by the adjudication committee. They would apply a post establishment self-funding approach, considering revenues generated from their production workshops, farms, gardens and plants. They would continue to intensify consultation with organised labour on the impact of the shrinking budget. Lastly, they would continue filling posts from within the Department. The unplanned onset of the COVID-19 pandemic had exacerbated the prevailing unstable and uncontrollable situation at the time, and had incrementally delayed the planned filling of posts.

This meant that the budget cuts on CoE had serious implications for the Department in the current financial year and in the MTEF period. It required a certain political intervention to prevent the delivery of correctional services being affected negatively and culminating in a crisis for the country going forward. He emphasised that the work of the security cluster was labour intensive, and therefore the mechanical reduction of its budget and personnel would invariably weaken its capacity and capability to reassess the authority of the state to protect the territorial Integrity of South Africa, and to ensure that all South Africans felt and were safe.

Irregular expenditure and consequence management

Deputy Minister Holomisa addressed the interventions that the Department was required to report on -- audit action plans, irregular expenditure and consequence management. This brought him to matters relating to their efforts in addressing identified audit findings that expressed themselves in issues of non-compliance, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. He would later provide insight into consequence management initiatives undertaken by the Department.

The DSC had improved over the past financial years in an attempt to address the audit findings. In the 2018/2019 financial year, the AG had qualified the Department’s annual financial statements on irregular expenditure and commitments on goods and services. However, in the 2019/2020 financial year, it was qualified only on irregular expenditure. Though a small move, it showed that the Department's efforts were bearing fruit. It was concerned with issues raised by the Portfolio Committee and the AG’s reports for the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 financial years, with specific reference to a negative audit outcome and recurring audit qualification on irregular expenditure, with findings. To resolve these areas, the Department had developed a detailed audit action plan, which included detailed audit action plans with specific time frames for each of the findings raised in those financial years. This had led to 76% of the findings relating to the 2018/2019 financial year being addressed. 

Various activities had been implemented to ensure that the remaining 24% were adequately resolved, to obviate a repeat finding by the AG. The following measures would be implemented to address the irregular expenditure and findings. Firstly, there would be a review of the accommodation determination system and the associated policy, to ensure reliability of information generated on cell measurements. There would also be a review of all supply chain management (SCM) payments to ensure completeness and full disclosure of irregular expenditure in the annual financial statements. Additionally, the Department had reviewed its finance and SCM manuals to ensure there were controls where they had been found to be inadequate and ineffective. 

The following measures, amongst others, had also been implemented to prevent a recurrence of irregular expenditure. The award of fees with the monetary threshold between below R10 million were first reviewed by the director of procurement. Those above R20 million were reviewed by the internal audit body, to ensure all compliance requirements were met. Mandatory briefing sessions were held with leaders to ensure that their submissions were aligned to the requirements of the Department. Special conditions of the contracts for perishable and non-perishable food items had been standardised to further eliminate the misinterpretation of the requirements, and there was now centralised signing of contracts exceeding R3 million as a preventative control measure. Contract monitoring ensured timely advertisement of new offered contracts, as late advertising had led to having to buy more food items, especially perishable goods, out of contract, which had resulted in irregular expenditure, which required condonation from National Treasury.

In addressing existing cases of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, the Department had put a team in place to investigate and finalise cases and to institute disciplinary measures where appropriate. To date, officials linked to 136 transactions of irregular expenditure had been disciplined with varying outcomes, such as final return warnings and suspension without salary, irrespective of their positions. The Department was in the process of reviewing other cases where officials had contravened SCM systems. Transgressions of policies, procedures and the departmental code of conduct undermined efforts to implement the mandate of the Department, which includes safe custody of inmates to serve their sentences until lawfully released. It was therefore crucial that consequence management should be meted out at all times as a deterrent in the form of sanctions. 

Of the 971 disciplinary cases that were reported for the third quarter of 2020/21, 722 had been finalised and 249 were in progress. The Department had observed an increase in disciplinary hearings due to progressive discipline applied as a result of non-adherence to measures stipulated in the Department’s risk-adjusted strategy to combat COVID-19. There had also been an increase in cases of absenteeism -- prevailing misconduct cases for being absent from duty without prior permission or authorisation. The other current cases involved 17 assault cases in Kwazulu-Natal – eight in Kokstad and nine in Empangeni.

There had been a decrease in the number of pending disciplinary cases, from 275 reported in the second quarter to 249 reported in the third quarter. Suspensions reported for the third quarter of 2020/21 were 112, of which 72 had been lifted. They had been finalised due to either final decisions being reached, or disciplinary processes having commenced, while the remaining 40 were still in the process of being investigated. There had been a marked decrease in suspensions, from 64 pending suspensions in the second quarter, to 40 pending suspensions in the third quarter. About 64.3% of suspensions had been resolved in the third quarter. The total cost of suspensions reported during the third quarter was R3.5 million, which was the remuneration cost for suspended employees. This figure had been impacted by SMS members who were on suspension.

Historically, suspensions were high due to officials using them as a means of punishment or for matters that did not require a suspension. The Department had since reduced such incidents by ensuring suspensions were instituted only to investigate serious offences, thereby reducing the number of people who were unavailable for service. The DCS endeavoured to ensure consistent consequence management, despite some of the transgressing officials claiming to be unaware of the results of their undesirable behaviour. There were continuous efforts to create awareness amongst members, despite the lockdown in the latter part of the previous financial year. Subsequent levels had resulted in restrictions around travelling and requirements for social distancing, amongst other limitations. Consistent and prompt consequence management would eventually bring about the desired effects and ensure a compliant Department.

Integrated inmate management system

On the integrated inmate management system, for justice to be and to be seen to be done, it was critical to have a criminal justice system that was efficient and effective. In order to achieve this, modernisation and mechanisation were key. The justice, crime prevention and security (JCPS) cluster had recognised the need for this transformation and as such, the cluster was in the process of developing the integrated justice system to share information across the cluster to enable efficiencies to be achieved. In the case of the DCS, they were currently reliant on legal systems that were not integrated, so they were unable to have a common comprehensive view of inmates or offenders, and their life cycle within the correctional system, which fragmented the interventions developed and delivered to the inmates or offenders. 

The integrated management system project was aimed at implementing a reliable, centralised inmate database and an agile inmate management environment solution for the use and benefit of the Department. The system aimed to support a single view of the capture of inmate and offender information, and enable officials to perform full profiling and integration of the details of the person’s rehabilitation, healthcare and psychosocial information, as well as other interventions through the use of biometric identification technology. A contract had been awarded for the development and implementation of this initiative to a company called Integrated Solutions in November 2015, with the formal project commencing in January 2016 on a three-year contract ending on 11 January 2019. It had been extended for a further 12 months at no additional cost to the Department. A three-year contract’s projected costs were R378 million, and a total of R259 million had been paid for, which was 68%. A mandatory development framework acquisition cost R142.6 million. Themes development consulting fees cost R116.5 million. The development framework, consisting of software and licences, formed the backbone of the system as a capital asset of the Department. They had utilised systems rolled out of various ICT systems for R126.8 million, which was not paid to the service provider, as they had not fulfilled all the requirements for developing the system. The service provider had declared a dispute, which the DCS had opposed. The appointment of an arbitrator by the Office of the State Attorney was under way in March 2020 when the hard lockdown halted process. Parties now awaited the appointment of the arbitrator.

Though the project had had its fair share of challenges, it had successfully delivered the ‘unsentenced’ portion, which was the remand detention module, at the end of March 2020. This module had been rolled out to nine sites at which point, unfortunately, the national state of disaster was proclaimed halting the rollout process. When the country moved to adjusted level 3 in August, the Department had regrouped its efforts and commenced the IIMS rollout to 11 sites by the end of the quarter 2, increasing it to 17 sites at the end of quarter 3. To date there were 21 sites where the IIMS had been rolled out. Limited technical capacity programming in the Department had resulted in the slow implementation of the remand detention module and finalisation of the remaining incarceration and community correction portions of the project. There was development and integration of other common modules, such as health, pharmacy and information exchange, continuity, and collaboration with integrated justice system. However, the capacity that was available from the IGS system had been discontinued, due to their contract expiring. The Department had developed a core strategy to have extra capacity to finalise the development of the many modules of things and roll out of the complete modules. This capacity included professionals who could be appointed only as consultants, because of their rare and costly skills. It was common cause that modernisation of the justice system was urgent, and the IIMS would allow districts to interface with the integrated justice system to better execute the incarceration, rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates.

Infrastructure projects

On infrastructure projects, in spite of the process of modernising and transitioning from prisons to a correctional system, it was imperative that infrastructure and buildings support the service delivery environment. The development of new, and the maintenance of existing, infrastructure of the Department was encompassed in the master infrastructure plan. Since the dawn of democracy in 1994, South Africa had taken many positive steps in transforming infrastructure, and this aspect was particularly evident in the transformation of prisons into centres of rehabilitation. Even though the Department of Correctional Services had made good strides in changing prisons into human rights-based rehabilitation centres, a lot of work still lay ahead to steer the justice and correctional services portfolio in the direction of ensuring a safer and secure South Africa.

The property portfolio of the Department consisted of 243 prisons and 218 community corrections offices, office accommodation, living quarters, agricultural facilities, recreational facilities and production workshops, a summary of which had been provided to the Committee in the circulated presentation. The poor condition of facilities in all aspects of rehabilitation and correctional activities hampered effective corrections in South Africa. Only 15 out of 240 standards conformed to the requirements of a new generation design. A brief comparison of old versus new generation designs facilities could be explained by stating that of the total population of correctional centres, 65% were in a poor to fair condition, while 35% were in fair to good state. During the fifth and current administration, the Department had finalised construction of several new generation correctional centres, providing a combined 3 150 bed spaces. 

Further to this, there were various repair and upgrade projects, with construction already in progress since 2020. The Department was not only concentrating on the construction of new facilities, but also focusing on the repair and upgrade of outdated infrastructure in line with the Department's master infrastructure plan. The construction of new correctional centres was scheduled to end their construction phases during the 2021/2022 financial year. Although the Department's master infrastructure plan focused mainly on transforming infrastructure into facilities of rehabilitation, the plan further emphasised infrastructure updates and maintenance. Part of the maintenance programme involved the use of own resources and labour. The primary purpose of this approach was to give inmates an opportunity to perform labour as a precursor to finding employment in industry, minimising idleness, encouraging positive participation in rehabilitation programs, empowering offenders with web skills to break the chain of the offending, and creating self-sufficiency after placement into communities. 

The DCS was enhancing utilization of inmate labour on various small maintenance structures. They would use offender labour during 2021/22 to concentrate on the refurbishment of buildings, laundries, and the construction of minor structures, such as entrance gates and pharmacies. Strategies to transform and construct infrastructure were going to be budget constrained, which impacted on the implementation and the condition of the building programme. The capital works budget had undergone several cuts during the past three financial years, resulting in a reduction of 40% -- from R779.9 million R469.5 million in the 2021/22 financial year.

Backlogs in parole process

The last item the Committee had requested the Department to deal with was around delays and backlogs in the parole process. The Committee had been concerned with the reasons given for the accumulation of backlogs, and more importantly what was being done to address them. The common cause was the quality of case management information of an offender which was submitted to parole boards.

Among the matters affecting the quality of information were:

outstanding professional reports from social workers and psychologists;
outstanding or incomplete police documentation, such as SAP 22 and SAP 69, which assist in the assessment process upon admission of an inmate to DCS, as well as with regard to restorative justice policies;
delays in the confirmation of the system address for offenders who were enlisted to be on parole;
identification in restorative justice programs; and
the special remission of sentences in 2020 and the special parole dispensation of 2021, placing additional pressures on the normal workload of officials.

It had become evident that case management administration required a review in order to introduce efficiencies and improve quality to prevent and reduce backlogs. In 2019, the Department had engaged case management committees in all regions to rectify the situation.

There had been some positive outcomes from this process in terms of improving administration. iThis had included a process of reviewing policies and standard operating procedures being initiated, guidelines on the packaging of inmate files being distributed and implemented, guidelines on victim participation in board sittings being implemented, and correctional centres appointing dedicated officials to track offending documents through nodal persons at various courts. Multilateral meetings were continuously held between the DCS, Justice and SAPS to overcome challenges, known as case-flow management meetings. All these interventions had improved the situation.

The insufficient number of social workers and psychologists to cope with the number of offenders due to appear before parole boards and the National Council of Correctional Services was one of the key challenges faced by the Department. Its service delivery model pointed to the need for a revised microstructure for the Department, which would better articulate requisite staffing norms for all professional services, based on the imperatives of offender probation. This also required an increasing government and society wide intervention to mobilise and leverage available professional resources to improve the impact of corrections. 

To mitigate against the current backlog, a National Lifer task team was established as a special project to produce the required psychological assessment reports. The process involved identifying a group of 10 or more psychologists nationally to be deployed to specific regions over five days to conduct bulk assessments. They would assess offenders over a period, after which reports would be submitted.

Regarding the appointment of the parole board, there were currently 156 posts for chairpersons, vice chairpersons and community corrections in the DCS, of which 26 were vacant. Ten posts would be advertised in the next round. The terms of contracts for chairpersons and vice chairpersons used to be for five years, whereas the current contracts were for only three years.

The current contracts state that the chairpersons and vice chairpersons shall not be entitled to any form of leave. as provided for in Chapter 3 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997. They did not qualify for any form of leave. They had had several meetings with the chairpersons and vice chairpersons of the parole board, and they had pointed out the glaring injustice of these kinds of contracts. The Minister was the person entitled to change these conditions of employment, and they were awaiting the Ministry reports from the National Commissioner as to what had been done in order to ensure that this anomaly was rectified. Chairpersons and vice chairpersons were remunderated pro rata on the period for which they worked, which was eight hours a day, Monday to Friday, excluding weekends and holidays, subject to the claims submitted for the month. Working hours and days in clause 9 of the contract indicated that no member of the parole board shall work on weekdays and holidays. These conditions of employment were hampering the work of the parole system and impacting negatively on the attempts to deal with overcrowding. They were thus awaiting the National Commissioner to tell them what the Department was doing to rectify the situation. The budget cuts were likely to be a sticking point in the matter but nonetheless, they still expected the National Commissioner to provide a report on the matter.

On managing the backlog of lifers and indeterminate sentence offenders, all 369 lifers had been considered by parole boards and the Minister, and for those that had served longer than their profile dates, their further profiles had been set for not later than 30 April this year. Of the 1 450 due, 660 had been considered by the parole boards. The target date for submission of the remaining 790 profile reports at head office was before the end of 2021.

The Chairperson commented that the Deputy Minister had provided a helicopter view of the entire presentation, and suggested that the Members engage on each of the presentations individually. He invited the National Commissioner and his team to present their presentations.

Mr Arthur Fraser, National Commissioner of Correctional Services, said that they would repeat much of what the Deputy Minister had presented, and suggested they immediately progress to questions.

Discussion
Ms J Mofokeng (ANC) addressed the integrated inmate management system. She understood the explanation given by the Deputy Minister. He had addressed the IIMS and the company that was contracted, but had failed to address where the Department was trying to get the skills transfer. She asked for clarification on the matter. She was concerned that there had been about R120 million that had not been paid to the service provider. What was happening with the court matter? They had said that the 12 months that were remaining had not been paid for, but had contradicted that by saying there was a balance, and suddenly there was also the issue of arbitration and processes. She asked for clarity on the matter.

In 2017, according to the legacy report, the Committee had visited a correctional centre and upon checking on the inmate service, had found that the system took too long to read fingerprints. Had all the technical challenges there been resolved? On the senior management, they stated they had 56 vacancies and still had the challenges of female and youth representation. There was a slow improvement in meeting equity employment targets, an increase in labour litigation, less than ideal labour relations, an inability to prevent or mitigate escaping prisoners, prison riots and an anticipated increase in fatigue. What were they doing about these issues? On the parole system, she asked for a clarification on the backlog, and how they would alleviate the situation.

Ms Nthabiseng Mosupye, chief deputy Commissioner: Government Information Technical Officer, DCS, responded to the question on skills transfer. A transfer had been done in the Department in terms of the rollout and the maintenance support of the system. If there were challenges in the system as they were rolling it out, their own officials fixed the errors. They still needed to finalise the development of the modules, being incarceration and corrections. Due to the very high skills required for developing the system, they did not have the resources. On the skills transfer for the maintenance and support of the coding that had been completed, with the arbitration process, they had first checked their own internal process where the service provider was claiming that they had completed and delivered the modules. They held that if the module was not functioning, the process they were currently using was to claim the R120 million of the unfinished or currently not functioning modules.

On the contract expansion, they were not increasing the contract costs. The original contract cost had been R378 million. For the extension period, they were not extending the contract, so there was no variance in the contract amount. They currently owned the biometric licences, and that was more of a technical matter which had been fixed. Their staff had been able to fix the problems as they arose.

Adv Patrick Mashibini, Chief Deputy Commissioner: Human Resources, DCS, referred to the possible consequences of budget cuts. They had interventions in place to address them. It was divided into two phases, where the first phase was mainly in the short-term and the second phase would be the medium to long-term intervention. On the short-term intervention, regarding the members who as a result of not getting the pay progression would experience low morale, they had employee mental health practitioners in all centres who would be dealing with the issue to address the low morale that they would be experiencing.

On the increase in litigation, labour unrest and unhealthy labour relations, in their short-term intervention they had indicated that they were in constant consultation with organised labour on the impact of the diminishing budget. They were currently engaging with organised labour because of the implications for the staff. As a result of this, they might also not achieve the employment equity targets which they had anticipated, especially in terms of the youth. One of their interventions was to reassess the filling of posts occupied by employees for the purposes of reprioritising those groups in their employment equity plan.

Deputy Minister Holomisa responded that they were currently engaging organised labour on multiple occasions and currently looking at the available options. The option that organised labour was choosing had serious financial implications. They were looking at an option that would be cost free to the Department, seeing that the current financial situation would last for the next three years.

Mr Fraser addressed the question on parole. They had put a plan in place to deal with the backlog, and the Deputy Minister had indicated the timeframes they had attached to it. They had looked at the qualities that they had submitted to the parole board, and would hold them responsible to ensure that the quality matched the expected output.

On the issue raised on the chairpersons and vice chairpersons, and the anomaly with regard to their contracts, keeping budget constraints in mind, they had sought the opinion of the state law advisor, and had been given an undertaking that an opinion would be provided to them in the next week.

Mr J Selfe (DA) referred to the IMMS, and said the current iteration on it started in 2018 and it had now gone to arbitration. According to his recollection, there was a long history on this, and various contractors had been brought in at various previous times to try and bring about an IMMS, or a variation of it. What had happened to that particular technology and those particular schemes in the past? Had they just been abandoned? Had they been integrated into the new system? What were the stages of that? On the budget cuts on personnel, the Deputy Minister gave an explanation about how the Department planned to mitigate the reduction in expenditure, but had any consideration been given to thinking far more creatively around transferring people within the Department? For example, if there was a greater emphasis on community service, with a non-custodial sentence one could move personnel from incarceration to community corrections and effect a cheaper system.

He referred to the number of artisans and educationists. If the objective of the correctional service system was to rehabilitate, re-skill and reintegrate people, then one would require a greater emphasis on education and training and skilling. He referred to the presentation on facilities, and said that throughout the entire correctional services system, there were only 48 production workshops of various sorts, and 122 farms. There was an emphasis on incarceration, and not enough emphasis on rehabilitation. The personnel who were allocated reflected that. Had the Department given any thought during the pandemic on restructuring the Department in order to achieve more fundamental goals?

Ms Mosupye responded to the question of the previous technologies that existed. It was an agreement between the Department, the SETA and Dimension Data, where their focus was on remand offender detention management. In those previous engagements, up to the period of 2014, they had tried to resuscitate the project and looked at the technology that was used. It was focused mainly on the remand detention portion of the process. Unfortunately, the DCS had also ended up in court with Dimension Data and the SETA. They had gone through the whole process, but had wanted to withdraw the case. They had said they were not withdrawing the case. They also wanted to recover the money they paid to SETA.

Mr Mashibini said the transfer of employees was one of the considerations they had incorporated into their intervention plan. On the realignment of their structure to deal with the pandemic, they were finalising the development of their microstructure. Unfortunately, when the pandemic started, it was at a time when they were focusing on that. As a result, they had looked at that possibility to make sure that the Department had sufficient resources in order to deal with the pandemic.

Mr Joseph Katenga, Chief Deputy Commissioner: Strategic Management, DCS, responded to Mr Selfe’s questions and provided further information as to how they were trying to evolve as an organisation within the broader cluster. They did not have the resources to deal with the incarcerated population, as well as those who were serving sentences in the community. As part of the service delivery model and part of the business process mapping, they had taken on board an understanding that there must be broader participation across the government and across society in general. That was the direction that they were trying to drive the issue of not only corrections, but economic stability and development in general. There had to be confidence in the alternative sentencing regime because the judiciary was responsible for saying whether one went into custody or into the community. Due to where they were now, they needed to be able to establish that confidence that anybody serving a sentence within the community would be monitored accordingly. It became a bigger discussion than corrections.

Regarding the complement of artisans versus what they were trying to achieve in the facilities environment, they had looked at the offender population and the issues of eligibility and risk, considering who would be eligible to go and actually participate in this programme. Did the artisan complement necessarily have to come from DCS payroll, or were there other resources across the community that could be leveraged? The discussion must become broader than looking at the correctional services mandate as prescribed, but rather to say, how could they ensure that they broaden the issues that actually impact on corrections, and then begin to have a progressive approach? That was what their service delivery model was proposing, as well as the issues of the business process mapping, which indicated quite clearly that they currently had certain skills that were not fit for purpose, and they needed to be deployed where they should be. They then needed to understand what the required skills were in order for them to be adequately delivering on their mandate.

Mr Lucky Mthethwa, Chief Deputy Commissioner: Incarceration and Corrections, DCS, responded that the Department would be focusing more on increasing their capacity to provide for their own personnel. (Unfortunately, poor audio quality prevented accurate coverage of his full response).

Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC) addressed the employment equity matter. The Department was not showing the breakdown of gender and youth numbers. She always liked to see whether they were meeting the target set for people with disabilities. Within their employment equity presentations, she asked that they include all three, but mainly the one for people with disabilities.

She asked for clarity on the R120 million that had not been paid because the service provider had not completed the modules. She asked why they had not completed the modules. It was obvious -- if one did not finish the job, one did not get paid. The Department was not paying because the service was not completed. Was there a reason, therefore, why they had taken the Department to court?

There were two reports sent to the Committee, and it had been explained that one was updated. The first report mentioned consultants to assist the Department with internal resources review. Why could National Treasury not assist the Department in doing that kind of work? The AG had already given a list of what needed to be done. Why did they need to hire consultants? The first report gave a detailed step-by-step kind of progression, so why were consultants being used in that process?

The Deputy Minister had mentioned a National Lifer task team, but there were no details, just that the professionals would be doing an assessment of four days and then a report on the fifth day. When would the entire project be completed? Was it something that was still ongoing?

The Department had different categories of filling of vacancies. They were related to budget cuts so vacancies could not be filled. However, regulation 40D states that the authority must, before filling a vacancy, assure that there is sufficient budget. The Department was seriously impacted by the budget cuts, and also needed to fill the vacancies. There were these regulations, but the Minister had not explained to them how to support this. Perhaps the Portfolio Committee needed to discuss how to take this further, because the rule was there -- but the budget cuts were also there. They needed to consider how to take this matter forward.

A DCS official responded that it had been an oversight from their side not to include people with disabilities, and they were addressing this to ensure they reached the national target. Currently, people with disabilities represented 0.79% of the work force. For the new financial year, they would do everything in their power to ensure that the 2% target that had been set for people with disabilities would be achieved.

Ms Mosupye said the DCS did not understand why the service provider had wanted to jump to the arbitration process. There were processes that were defined. They had to start with the informal dispute resolution process, but as they were arguing on every piece of work they had done, they were quick to go via the arbitration process. They had started proposing arbitrators, and those that they were proposing had not done work in an IT environment. They had also started writing demand letters to the Department, demanding the outstanding amount, but they said that if they started using this route they would also go via the arbitration process, as defined in their contract.

Mr Mashibini responded to the question on why the DCS had needed consultants to assist it to deal with irregular expenditure. On the report submissions, he had just been informed that it was done through a request by the Department for the presentation relating to the action plans for the audit, and there had also been a request for a presentation by the audit committee on measures undertaken by them to assist the Department to address the concerns presented in the slides, given their independence. The high level presentations summarised the issues related to the audit action plan, as well as the matters related to irregular expenditure. None of the reports were withdrawn, but had been forwarded to the Committee.

The primary reason why the Department had sought the assistance of consultants had been due to the issues of capacity within the SCM. and the nature and extent of the work that needed to be done to ensure that before the finalisation of the financial statements at the end of March, they needed to address the issues of irregular expenditure. The Department had to go through the entire population of all payments and see which specific irregular expenditures could have been identified in the financial statements, and then to discuss budget accordingly.

Mr Fraser asked for clarification from Ms Newhoudt-Druchen on her question regarding the lifers before they responded.

Ms Newhoudt-Druchen clarified that the Deputy Minister mentioned the National Lifers task team and getting professionals to travel to the different regions to assess them, and on the fifth day of the five they would produce a report. Had the team already started working? When would all the reports be compiled and submitted to the Department? Her question was related to timeframes throughout the entire project.

Mr Mthethwa, responded that the Department had already started doing its work with the assistants, in collaboration with their area commissioners and heads of centres. They were monitoring the work of the task team with specific reports on cases that had been considered on a weekly basis. They had divided the work in line with the different cases of lifers that they were considering. They were specifically focusing on the profiles that were overdue. They were tracking their qualities and their being processed by the parole board, as well as those taken for the Minister’s decision. The first date of assessment would be 30 April.

The Chairperson asked the Deputy Minister and the Commissioner to explain what the DCS mandate was, and how far the Department was from achieving it. It seemed that this was a department with thousands of committed, selfless servicemen and women who did a thankless job. People who were no longer wanted by society fell into their hands.

It seemed that the systems of the DCS were run externally – it relied on external role players. Throughout the presentation of the Deputy Minister, there was a lot of dependency on consultants and there did not seem to be any transfer of those skills. There had been talk about a period of years where consultants were used, but there had been indication that the Department had got results from the use of those consultants. Mr Selfe indicated had that at the core of their mandate was the issue of rehabilitation. He agreed on the point raised, that the work they were dealing with was a reflection of what was happening in society. However, there were areas where this Department which could not be associated with the problems happening in society. When they were not able to conduct interviews to deal with issues, it had nothing to do with what was happening in society. They had only 15 out of 243 centres that were conforming to the requirements. Besides this, they seemed to be a 30%-plus performance department. They had this chronic level of under-performance, not even mentioning the issue of their irregular expenditure. In their last annual report, this was what the AG picked up.

When they dealt with the issue of irregular expenditure, it was a serious occurrence, but it seemed to be a normal occurrence in the Department. They had also come with a new excuse, which was COVID-19, and he was not going to buy it. Whenever something was not happening, there was an association with COVID-19. They could provide the Committee with beautiful plans and deadlines, but he had walked a journey with the Department before COVID-19, and that journey did not persuade him to agree that they were unable to do certain things because of COVID-19. He would expect a better explanation and justification than a mere COVID-19 explanation.

Their reports refer to parole, but they do not even explain the status and progress of it. He wanted a better explanation. On the IIMS, he sought clarity on the issue of different contractual disputes that had been lodged. It seemed there was stalled progress. There was no visible progress in his view even before COVID-19, so he would not expect anyone to speak about it. In the presentation they had claimed that three-year contracts had been signed and subsequently expired in 2019/2020. What had resulted from that? What could they show after three years? How much money had been spent, and one did not see results? Who was getting paid, and paid to do what? Their objectives are so noble, such as the IIMS project that seeks to achieve the goal of a single view. Time had elapsed, and five years later they were still dealing with the same thing. Their core mandate, which was rehabilitation was just a side issue, as per their presentation, which was an accurate representation of what was happening. Before COVID-19, they had explained that part of the challenges to achieving this objective were issues of overcrowding, infrastructure and so on. One was not getting a picture here that said they did not have money today, but if they had money this was how they would be packaging the rehabilitation programme. Their mandate was informed by restorative justice, which was why he was posing the question to the Commissioner. 

On the progress summary, out of six deliverable items they were improving in only two of them -- remand detention, where the overall completion percentage was at 91%, and the Integrated Justice System (IJS) at 80% overall completion. Everything else was 30% overall completion, and the reason for that spoke to their health care services, their pharmacies, their incarceration corrections and community connections. The contributing areas to this non-performance related to their functional requirements specifications, their technical design, their development build. Those issues were very important to the kind of mandate and programme that they were supposed to achieve. How were the stakeholders assisting them in the areas where they were doing better? He suspected they were doing better in those areas because they were not alone. It was probably the consultants again, hence his point about over-reliance on consultants.

On the project financials, 68% of the R380 million had been paid to this service provider. What did that money buy? They had a dispute because this service provider wanted the rest of the money. There was no indication in the presentation of what they were doing about these disputes.

On the status of critical and scarce skills posts, and the effect of the CoE, it was apparent that the DCS was already dysfunctional, given the kind of report they were hearing. The lack of performance had nothing to do with the problems of society. It was about the capability, capacity and competence in the Department. The non-filling of vacancies was a problem that had to be attended to, or there must be consequences. The Deputy Minister had said they wanted to begin the process of streamlining and taking the fat out of the head office. He did not know how that could happen, as this was not a delivery point -- it was a strategic point, and they needed to have critical capacity. However, in terms of the mandate of this Department, that was not where it was happening. 

This presentation did not demonstrate a shock on the progress on the audit and the crisis from an audit committee point of view. It seemed that things were normal. Which of the investigations that were spoken about were conceptualised by consultants, and not by the Department?

Ms Mosupye referred to the slide in the presentation where they had summarised their results. The rehabilitation programme had been included in that process. The first two slides of their presentation indicated that they had identified the current programmes of the Department. One of the challenges was that every centre ran its own system, hence the integration. The sub-module of rehabilitation was developed independently of the main module. The IIMS was to centralise and streamline the process. The biggest achievement currently was that it was integrated. It had not been rolled out to incarcerated and community corrections as yet.

When doing community development there were processes to be undertaken. Those processes were at the top level. The service provider had not completed that process, so therefore the Department could not pay them. On slide 11, they had explained where the money went. In the first portion, they were developing the baseline of the solution. That portion, which was 11%, was the biometric engine. Currently they have the biometric engine that took the fingerprints of over a million. The 8% was part of the software that they had acquired. They had to buy licences for the maintenance and the solutions, otherwise it deteriorates and did not work. They needed professional skills to develop the solutions and the modules, and they had paid only R168 million to the service provider. The baseline, which was the backbone of the system, was owned by the Department and could not be taken away. They also depended on, and had to train, the officials to use the system on a daily basis. They were progressing quite well to roll out the completed module on the remand detention population. By the end of the financial year, they would have covered 60% of the remand detention population in the country.

Mr Mashibini agreed that COVID-19 had been used as an excuse, but the Department was trying to move away from that. On slide 19, of the five identified challenges, four were related to COVID-19. The Department was also affected when the President announced restrictions on the country during lockdowns. People could no longer move from one province to another as a result of the lockdown. They could not invite candidates from other provinces to attend interviews. They needed to ensure social distancing. When the pandemic started, they had relied on the Department of Health for directions on how the virus was transmitted. From lockdown level 2, they had resumed services. When hiring new candidates, they had to go through the process of vetting. Many of the institutions required to do this vetting were also locked down. As a result, they had developed their own declaration form.

In their circular of 2020, they had said employers throughout must ensure that 60% of the staff remained at home. They did not advertise a post unless it was endorsed by the accounting office. Despite the challenges, they were working hard on improving the human resource (HR) budget planning tools. They were ensuring they were filling posts as far as South African youth were concerned. They had also ensured they had filled all the contract posts. They had employed over 573 health practitioners as a result of the pandemic. They were doing everything in their power, and assured the Committee that they would continue to address the challenges they were experiencing.
 
On the issue of the audit action plans, they had made a note of the Committee’s comments. On the irregular expenditures, the investigation within the Department was a process that used internal resources, not necessarily consultants. Consultants were used in the Department only to ensure the full disclosure of irregular expenditure.

Mr Nicodemus Ligege, Chief Financial Officer, DCS, said they were not proud of their irregular expenditure. They wanted to reduce its occurrence. The finance and supply chain were not spared in terms of the cuts. Due to the budget cuts, there were posts they were unable to fill. One of the critical issues was that the supply chain was not properly capacitated, so the speed at which they responded was hampered. 45% of the irregular expenditure at the end of March 2020, was a result of non-compliance, which had to be disclosed in their books. The biggest irregular expenditure was where they did have conferencing space. Some of these goods were not discretionary, but they were trying to improve the accelerated implementation of procurement.

Mr Fraser responded that it was correct to say that the Department had challenges. Over the past two years they had conducted reviews to determine where they were in terms of those challenges. What they had established were procedural, structural and organisational problems. They had adopted a long-term view on how they needed to plan for the Department. They had reflected and acknowledged that their initial offenders did not necessarily remain for five years in their facilities -- some were sentenced to beyond 50 years, so they needed to have a long-term outlook.

A challenge was also the frequent rotation of executive and accounting officers. The emphasis from their strategic review was to say they must focus on their centres, because their services were performed only at the centre level. With appointments, they looked at the centres first, which was why they could not prioritise head office over the core phase. They had told the head office that they needed to be centres of excellence with the capability to deal with structure development, to monitor and evaluate and to ensure that they were core facilitators.

They were in the process of finalising all their MOUs so that they were able to monitor the agreements with both non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the government. The most standard operation procedure, called the B Order, had not been reviewed in this democracy. They had finalised it and would be signing it off next week. The B order told an official what was required in a financial sense from the beginning to the end. They had signed off policies and were in the process of developing handbooks, because the supervision at the management level had been challenged. The handbooks would be handed over to every head of centre in the next two weeks so there would be a consistent application of supervision and management throughout the country.

They had also developed a Commissioners handbook, which was important because it was aligned to the President's model, the district development model. They were putting mechanisms in place to ensure that they solidified their foundation, and were able to build on that. These building blocks would at least be the foundations for character evolution within the space of corrections.

On the issue of facilities, they had developed a master plan so that they had an outlook on what facilities they should have, based on the migration patterns of the country and where they thought they should have their facilities. A critical partnership they were looking to strengthen, was the area of social development. They were in the final stages of developing a policy document on integrity testing of our all their officials, which they would be engaging organised labour on. This would act as a detection and deterrence mechanism.

He took responsibility for the slack performance when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They had expected a massive implosion in their facilities, and may have overreacted due to a stigmatisation which was created among the officials. They had had to deal with the fears of isolation from their staff members. He commended his team’s resilience and attributed it to the non-implosion of the system as a result of COVID-19.

Deputy Minister Holomisa commented that the insight the Committee provides assisted them in ensuring that they performed better. The Department had been damaged in the recent past because of the cases before courts that involved millions of rands. As a constitutional state, they were bound to respect the processes of law enforcement in the form of the judiciary. Even though they might have wished that these cases did not exist, they were forced to conform to the law because it was the constitutional right of those concerned to defend their interests in the courts. 

It was equally surprising to the Department that there were people who expected to continue to be paid after not delivering on a contractual obligation. Court processes were not straightforward processes -- there were technicalities and procedures, and people lost cases on the basis of procedures even before getting into the merits of the matter concerned. The Department had its shortcomings, but it was a functioning department. It continued to keep inmates in custody safely and securely remand detainees that had been brought to them by the courts and the police, to keep them until their trials had been concluded or their cases withdrawn. The Department continued to keep sentenced offenders in safe custody securely, therefore contributing to a safer community of the people of South Africa. They continued to provide them with rehabilitation programmes that were aimed at correcting their conduct so that when they came out of the centres they were a better than they were before. That was why people were on parole, in spite of the challenges. A number of them did commit crimes while they were out on parole, which brought a stigma to the institution. The great majority did comply with the conditions that have been given to them to be out on parole. They were not working alone – they were working with other institutions of the state, like the SAPS, courts and so on. Some of the escapes that occurred usually took place somewhere between the courts and their centres while they were in the custody of the police.

The courts determined whether a person should be incarcerated in the centres, or whether the person must be given probation or should serve the sentence outside of the centres. They did not have much control over that, except by indicating the impact each sector had on each other to minimise failures. They tried to ensure that they did not work in silos. One should not be eager to send people to prison unnecessarily, and fortunately laws were being amending regarding minimum sentences that were mandatory. To address overcrowding in the centres, a number of inmates had to be released, but the community must be educated, especially where the prevailing view was that the best approach was to keep that person in jail once they had committed a crime, or if they were granted bail, they should be required to pay high sums of money. When people were released on parole, they were entitled to be so in terms of the conditions that were laid down in the policies and laws, and people continued to need to be engaged and educated.

He appealed to the Committee to join in some of the activities they were performing to gain more insights and monitor their work. They needed to be exposed to what the DCS were doing. Only recently, they had held a function where they gave out certificates for having better numbers for those who passed matric than some schools in the country, while also remembering that they were confined, which allowed them to not be distracted by other things. There was a lot of good work that was happening, which showed that in spite of these difficulties, the Department was functional.

The Chairperson summarised the meeting and what they expected in the next session from the Department, and committed to relay the resolutions of what needed to be done. He asked whether they needed assistance. He went back to slide 19 and explained why the excuse given was unacceptable. He was part of the Magistrates Commission, and for 60 days and nights he had been away from home and they had been doing short-listing and interviews during the pandemic of 2020 and 2021, and had 481 applicants to close the vacancies for 172 magistrates. Those magistrates were needed, regardless of COVID-19, because the courts had work to do. Correctional Services, in the same way as the courts, was needed with COVID or no COVID. Its operations did not come to a standstill. They had to begin to develop an approach.

The meeting was adjourned.

 

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