Question NW700 to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services
08 July 2022 - NW700
Breytenbach, Adv G to ask the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services
In light of the fact that several courts in Limpopo have been without functional court recording equipment since August 2021 and without closed-circuit television systems since March 2021, and in view of the fact that there are no service contracts in place for the equipment, what measures has he and/or his department put in place to address the untenable situation?
Reply:
A Service Provider has been appointed for a period of twelve (12) months whilst awaiting the finalisation of the procurement of a solution for Maintenance and Support Services thereof. The Maintenance and Support Services include support for both the Court Recording Technology (CRT) systems and SOS systems. The process of dealing with all backlogs technical repair, as logged, has commenced in February 2022. The biggest challenge in resolving logged calls was the replacement of the hardware (e.g. Microphones, etc.) which comprised about 80% of the calls. The hardware could only be obtained via a Service Provider accredited for the solution and the hardware. These calls are currently being dealt with as part of the twelve (12) months contract.
Concurrent to this, the Department has already started with the procurement process to appoint a service provider to deliver the support and maintenance for CRT and SOS systems over a period of three (3) years. At the date of responding to this question, this process has progressed quite significantly, with the procurement process expected to be finalised by the end of June 2022 (barring any delays in the process, i.e. Constitutional Court Judgement re procurement, etc.) Implementation of this process is being monitored on a weekly basis by the relevant senior manager, supported by a Task Team monitoring High Priority procurements.
The Department currently has 11 courts equipped with Security CCTV Systems in the Limpopo Province. The contract of the Service Provider appointed in December 2020 expired in January 2022 and a new Service Provider, Morobisi Technologies, was appointed in April 2022 to maintain, monitor and repair the CCTV Systems. Service Points (Courts) without Security CCTV Systems are physically monitored by the Outsourced Guardian Services as contracted by the Department.