The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services continued with its interrogation of annual reports for the 2022/23 financial year from all departments and entities that must report to the committee. Yesterday was the turn of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), the Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services (JICS) and the Information Regulator (IR).
The committee heard that the DCS has introduced sustainability programmes that now produce food for inmates. The committee heard that 1 277 offenders worked in production workshops daily in the last financial year and 3 352 inmates daily worked in DCS agricultural farms. Over the past three financial years, the DCS saved R372 million through the Self Sufficiency Strategic Framework. The DCS was 100% self-sufficient in producing eggs for inmates. Other food items internally produced for inmate’s rations included: 9.4 million kg of vegetables, 482 000 kg of fruits, 425 100 kg of red meat, and 1m kg of chicken meat, 1.7 m kg of pork, 5
.9 m litres of milk and 4.6 million loaves of bread at a cost of R7, 02 per loaf.
In terms of overcrowding, the DCS continued to implement the Overcrowding Reduction Strategy to mitigate against rising levels of overcrowding that affect its operations in a multitude of ways.
Committee Member, Mr Qubudile Dyantyi who is also the Chairperson of the Sub-Committee on Correctional Services, raised concerns about the overcrowding at facilities and the strategy being used to address the problem. He said it is clear that the DCS is not winning this battle. He further raised concerns about the number of retiring employees and resignations of staff, which he said raise concerns as it leads to vacancy rates.
Another committee Member, Ms Nomathemba Maseko-Jele, cautioned about failures to meet the 30-day payment agreement that governs the public service and the DCS’s delays in payment. ‘It must be closely monitored. It is the small companies that suffer the most.’
JICS informed the committee that is extremely concern
ed about the number of remand detainee inmates, which is currently at its highest ever – 50 237 males and 1 834 females. JICS also has concerns with the increase in inmates serving life sentences. During the current financial year, that number has increased by 1 268 and now stands at 18 641. This, JICS said, contributed to the already overcrowded facilities.
Other concerns raised by JICS are the consequences of overcrowding – inmate population of 157 056 and national overcrowding rate of 146%, dysfunctional parole boards, long periods of pre-trial detention and unaffordable bail – 55 870 remandees, 4 594 cannot afford bail of less than R1 000 and state patients detained for extended periods in correctional centres.
JICS is also concerned about the extended solitary confinement at super-maximum prisons, continued dysfunction in the E-corrections system, JICS’s under-funding and under-capacitation, grim reports of assault and excessive violence by Emergency Support Team members, and discrimination and exclusi
on reported by LGBTQ+ inmates.
Regarding the IR, the committee heard that despite having limited resources, its performance continues an upward trajectory in this financial year. The IRs performance improved from 62% in the 2020/21 financial year and 68% in the 2021/22 financial year and rocketed to 91% in the year under review. Out of the 34 performance targets planned at the commencement of the period under review, 31 of those targets were achieved.
Although the information officer of every public body in South Africa must submit a Promotion of Access to Information Act Section 32 report to the Information Regulator annually and that it compulsory, only 25% of all such bodies complied. Committee member Werner Horn raised that as a concern and wanted to know what the committee can do to assist to ensure compliance.
Further engagement with other entities will continue over the next few weeks.
Source: Parliament of South Africa