Cape Town — The Portfolio Committee conducted an oversight visit to some Gauteng prisons where overcrowding, aging infrastructure and staff shortages were some of the problems highlighted.
The Committee visited the Emthonjeni juvenile correctional centre in Baviaanspoort, the Leeuwkop prison, Kgosi Mampauru II’s C-Max female prison and the Unisa Hub this past week, while the committee members also visited the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services’ (JICS) in Centurion, TimesLIVE reported.
Kgomotso Ramolobeng, the comiitee chairperson, said that it understood there was overcrowding in prisons but did not anticipate the high number of oifreign prisoners.
“In Modderbee we had huge numbers of foreign nationals housed there. They constituted 45% of the facility.” She said if foreign inmates were removed from that prison, there would be no overcrowding,” Ramolobeng said.
She added that bilateral meetings need to be set up to mitigate the current set-up, and that most of foreign nationals in the system were not documented.
Apart from the smuggling of contraband, Johannesburg Prison was among the best-run prison visited. During the visit, a cellphone was found and handed to officials for investigation.
The Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services conducted oversight visits to several correctional centres in Gauteng this week. This was parliament’s attempt to inspect the conditions of incarceration, the treatment and service provided to inmates and the employment conditions… pic.twitter.com/VINfbYirMz
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) October 11, 2024
Ramolobeng added that most of the facilities had infrastructural problem. Baviaanspoort’s kitchen was closed and the centre required food from Zonderwater prison, located 20km away, whi;e the kitchen at Kgosi Mampuru prison had limited pots available.
The committee also noted there were many vacancies in the prisons they visited. This was because some officials were leaving due to old age, leading to numerous acting posts.
The committee has asked the department to appear before it on October 22 to provide a detailed plan on how it would fill the vacancies and whether those posts were budgeted for.
“We need a detailed plan to deal with all vacancies including psychologists, nurses, those who assist inmates with rehabilitation, criminologists, doctors and wardens.”
Ramolobeng said the committee would make recommendations to the department to address the challenges it had identified.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
