Parliament, Wednesday, 26 February 2025 – The Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services commenced its week-long oversight programme of correctional facilities in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) to assess the efficacy of the regulations framework, policies and practices that govern them, with an aim to review and make legislative recommendations on the Correctional Services Act where necessary.
The committee commenced its oversight programme at the Kokstad Medium and eBongweni Super Maximum Correctional Service Centres yesterday.
Of paramount significance in these oversight visits is the committee’s urgency to assess prison conditions, facilities and rehabilitation programmes that the inmates are subjected to. This is because the life of prisoners and the conditions in which they live are often kept away from public scrutiny.
In explaining the aim of the visit to the provincial correctional facilities, the Chairperson of the committee, Ms Kgomotso Ramolobeng said the committee is in the province to get assurance that the correctional facilities are run the way they should be run. “We are all at work to get clarity about what we are contracted to do as a committee and the Department Correctional Services,” she said.
During their walk-about inspection at Kokstad Medium Correctional Centre, members of the committee discovered that its kitchen, which also serves the eBongweni Super Maximum Prison, continues to operate with a non-compliant certificate that was issued in 2020. The Chairperson declared that the department should ensure that the Kokstad Medium Correctional Centre’s kitchen “is compliant to meet the required food safety standards”.
The committee also visited the eBongweni Super Maximum Correctional Centre, which is also in Kokstad, and applauded the centre for its contraband-free status. The committee called for other correctional centres to use eBongweni’s practices as benchmarks and emulate them to stem the flood of contraband.
Ms Ramolobeng also called for funded vacant positions at both centres to be filled immediately as failure to do so has a negative impact on conditions there. “We can’t continue to have people acting in critical operational positions indefinitely. Such critical posts must be filled with immediate effect and the department must give us timeframes; we can’t make acting a normality,” she said.
The committee asked the Department of Correctional Services to provide a turnaround strategy explaining how it will remedy the outstanding matters raised by the committee.
The committee will today visit Pietermaritzburg Med A and Med B correctional centres.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON CORRECTIONAL SERVICES, MS KGOMOTSO RAMOLOBENG.
For media inquiries or interviews with the Chairperson, please contact the Committee’s Media Officer:
Name: Abel Mputing (Mr)
Cell: 081 705 5521
E-mail: amputing@parliament.gov.za
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