Cape Town — Minister of Correctional Services, Pieter Groenewald, has revealed it would cost the department an estimated R36 billion to construct new correctional centres to end overcrowding in prisons.
Speaking during a parliamentary Q&A session, the minister said that the department was currently grappling with an average overcrowding rate of about 46%.
He said the only way to combat this was to construct an additional 50 000 beds, TimesLIVE reported.
“This requires the construction of 100 new correctional centres with a bed space capacity of 500 each, or 50 new correctional centres with a bed space of 1,000 each,” Groenewald said.
According to the 2022/23 Property & Construction Africa Cost Guide, 1 000 beds in a medium correctional centre would cost between R680 000 and R725 000 per bed space, while 500 beds will cost a medium correctional centre between R725 000 and R810 000 per space. A high/maximum security correctional centre would cost between R1 million and R1.4 million per bed space.
Groenewald acknowledged that the fiscal environment was not conducive to meeting the requirement.
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According to The Citizen, the department has made efforts to increase bed space, adding 2 788 beds between September 2023 and July 2024, rising from 104 558 to 107 346.
“The need to increase the national bed space capacity is receiving attention through the construction of new facilities, the upgrade of outmoded facilities, regaining lost bed space and refurbishment of dilapidated facilities under the auspices of allocated funding from the National Treasury,” the report quoted the minister as saying.
Groenewald said the DCS currently has 69 infrastructure projects underway, comprising capital and maintenance initiatives, including two key construction projects aimed at tackling overcrowding.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
