(Budget vote debate in Parliament: Correctional Services)
The reduced budget of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) may seriously jeopardise the Department's ability to fulfil its mandate to contribute to a fair, peaceful and safer South Africa by placing offenders in a secure, safe and humane environment and ensuring the rehabilitation and successful reintegration of past offenders back into society.
The budget cuts will surely have an impact on the compensation of personnel and could result in the termination of non-essential employees' contracts and may also mean that critical positions will not be filled again after being vacated. The reduction in the workforce will have a detrimental effect on the Department's ability to provide the necessary support and wellbeing services to prisoners.
The current high ratio of prisoners to correctional officers already makes it difficult to manage these facilities and often results in violence, illicit smuggling and unnatural deaths. The Department must ensure a more balanced and beneficial ratio between the number of correctional officers and prisoners to address these problems.
The smaller budget will also restrict the DCS's ability to implement projects aimed at achieving self-sufficiency and sustainability.
The FF Plus is an advocate of self-sufficiency and skills development and will support any feasible, sustainable initiative by the DCS to generate an income and to implement skills development in such a way that it contributes meaningfully to the country's economic recovery.
The DCS's poor audit findings are alarming, particularly its lack of accountability, high irregular expenditure and its failure to conclude disciplinary processes.
The DCS must compile timeframes with deadlines for the finalisation of disciplinary matters in order to limit its irregular expenditure on salaries paid to suspended employees.
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