FRIDAY, 2 JUNE 2006 __

          PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES

                                ____

The Council met at 09:37.

The Deputy Chairperson took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayers or meditation.

ANNOUNCEMENTS, TABLINGS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS – see col 000.

    WELCOMING OF MINISTERS, DEPUTY MINISTERS AND MECs TO COUNCIL

The DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF THE NCOP (Ms P M Hollander): Tswêêtswêê tsayang manno a lona. [Please be seated.] We would like to acknowledge the presence of hon Minister Balfour, Minister of Correctional Services; hon Minister Charles Nqakula, Minister of Safety and Security; hon Deputy Minister of Defence, Minister M E C George; and hon J H de Lange, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development; Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, hon L Jacobus; all MECs of the provinces, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga. You are all welcome here this morning, Ministers, and feel free to be with us.

                             NO MOTIONS

The CHIEF WHIP OF THE COUNCIL: Thank you, hon Deputy Chairperson. We have agreed that today we will not have any motions, because we are having a very high profile debate, with all the security sectors, taking place today.

                         APPROPRIATION BILL


                           (Policy debate)

Vote No 20 – Correctional Services;

Vote No 21 – Defence;

Vote No 23 – Justice and Constitutional Development;

Vote No 24 – Safety and Security:

The MINISTER OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES: Chairperson, Deputy Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, uSis’ Peggs, permanent delegates of the NCOP, special delegates to the NCOP, MECs, Ministers and Deputy Ministers that are with us today, I stand here today to reflect on the Budget Vote of the Department of Correctional Services, being proud of the inroads that we have made in transforming this dynamic department from the pariah it became under apartheid to the living example it has become in correcting offending behaviour in the new democratic dispensation.

Today I am proud to announce, in this House, that the huge ship that has been sailing in rocky and murky waters without any compass, which symbolised the correctional services of yesterday, is now clearly steering in the right direction, and turning to avoid the major dangers of rocky coastlines and huge icebergs. This ship is led by a dynamic and committed crew on board and a very confident captain at the helm.

I am happy to announce that the Acting Inspecting Judge of Prisons, the retired Judge Johannes Fagan, will, as from today, finally enjoy his retirement after that sterling performance of his that assisted us in the transformation of this challenging department. I therefore wish to announce the appointment of Judge Nathan Erasmus as the new Acting Judge as of Monday, 5 June, to 31 October 2006, when we hope to have finalised the appointment of a permanent judge for the duration of the term. Judge Nathan Erasmus is sitting there with us. Judge Erasmus, can we introduce you, please? [Applause.]

Once again, we wish to convey our gratitude to Judge Fagan and assure him that his contribution to strengthening democracy in South Africa will always remain part of our institutional memory. I would like also to welcome the new Acting Judge, with the assurance that he will have all our support as a department. Today I stand here with a sense of optimism for a brighter future, the new age of hope, having made a positive impact in turning around someone else’s life. On Wednesday, this week, at 21:30 I watched, anxiously and inquisitively, the Special Assignment documentary on SABC 3, which focused on the lives of female offenders in Pollsmoor. As the documentary unfolded, there was this main personal story of one character who was sentenced to 25 years for murder, 15 years for attempted robbery, with aggravating factors, and five years for theft. Those were three counts.

In total, these sentences, which amount to 45 years, were to be served concurrently. Without going into the detail of how this woman committed these crimes, which could arguably be for a myriad of reasons, it transpired that this 49-year-old Khayelitsha woman, has to date served 15 years without parole.

Having considered the profile of the offender, and having looked at the offences committed, and balancing it with the hurt inflicted on the victim and her family, furthermore including the rehabilitation programmes that she has been involved in in Pollsmoor, and the fact that she poses no danger at all to society and the community by now, we were left with no other option, but to intervene as a department, as her appearance before a parole board was long overdue. [Applause.]

The parole board of Pollsmoor, without any hesitation, sat and took a decision to release her on parole grounds. [Applause.] She will undergo a month of pre-release, and after that she will be in community correction facilities to see that she settles down and she is reintegrated into her family. From there on we will see what life has to offer her. She should be sitting up in the gallery. I think she is late. When she comes in, could someone please let us know, so that we can acknowledge her?

Let me repeat this, we are not acknowledging the crimes that she committed. We are just acknowledging the fact that she has done 15 years of her sentence. At this stage she does deserve to join her family. We have to be a humane department, and we have to be a department that also balances that humanity with humanity for the victims as well. We have to maintain that balance all the time. But at the end of the day, we have to give our offenders a second chance in life.

We are not God. We are not here to judge, but to make sure that at least when we do give them programmes and rehabilitate them back into society, that society will accept them back and give them a chance again.

As a result of this particular case, we have come to the conclusion that there could be other cases that are similar to hers, which may also need to be considered for parole. It is against this backdrop that I have, therefore, issued a national directive for the audit of various cases in correctional centres, to establish how many cases are due for parole and how many are long overdue for parole, but have not been considered as a result of bureaucratic oversight and the backlog in cases of this nature. We might find that particularly in the bigger centres there is that problem of such cases, which are not looked at.

It does not mean that it is going to be a willy-nilly way of looking at parole situations. We are going to be tight on that because we want to be very serious on crime. My hon colleague, hon Minister Nqakula, is there to do a good job. He catches them, and the Minister of Justice, the judges and magistrates mete out justice to them and sentence them. They give them over to this big fellow standing here - me. And I have to lock them up and make sure that they do their sentence and are rehabilitated. But at some stage they get back to society. I cannot undermine what Minister Nqakula is doing, and what the Justice department is doing. We work together in one cluster.

This audit that I am talking about will, therefore, commence in the big correctional centres, those that have a high population rate. It will be conducted by a panel, which will be appointed in due course. This panel will also include members of the community, because we need people of integrity to work with us.

We are confident that this process will expedite the granting of parole, so that we do not disadvantage rehabilitated offenders who qualify for parole. This will be tantamount to denial of justice. I must caution, however, that this is not going to be a free-for-all process that will lead to our making decisions willy-nilly.

The Department of Correctional Services has introduced compulsory rehabilitation programmes for all offenders. Those who refuse to engage in these programmes will be penalised. There are young people that I saw in Kroonstad Prison, the juvenile centre, who refuse to go on educational programmes. Therefore, we are going to put penalties in place for those who don’t want to study and go into programmes. Penalties will include removal of certain privileges.

Rehabilitation of offenders cannot become an individual choice. They can’t have that choice. We must give them choices, and they have to follow them. All these measures will be effected in the proposed Correctional Services Amendment Act, which will be tabled in Parliament in due course.

In addressing parole issues, we will consider the crimes committed, the profile of the offender in terms of his or her involvement in programmes, and whether or not there is a possibility of committing an offence again. Of critical importance, also, will be the opinion of the community and the public. We have the responsibility to sustain this age of hope, and I am glad that with the decision we have made in this regard, many of our people agree that, indeed, hope has dawned on all of us.

The NCOP has played a major role in oversight. I must, at the same time, also thank Kgoshi Mokoena, and the select committee that has been working with us and performing oversight on us. They have been keeping us on our toes about the work that we do, and questioning us on decisions that we make. The role that they have played is the role that is actually empowering us, and is making us an efficient and effective department. I therefore say, Viva! to Kgoshi and his select committee.

There are other initiatives that we are taking in trying to reduce overcrowding in our correctional centres. There are many initiatives that we are taking, because overcrowding is a reality in our centres. We are asking magistrates and judges and we are also asking my officials, who are here, the regional commissioners of provinces, to assist us in cutting down the number of offenders within our centres.

Parole boards are all across the country. We have 52 parole boards across the country. We ask those parole boards to review some of the cases, not just at any given moment, but to keep on looking at some of the cases! Those that are deserving, with the assistance of the community, look into them and assist them in returning them to the community. We make an appeal to families to assist us. Whenever there is a parole date coming up for your family member, you be there. The victims’ families can also be there, so that at the end of the day there is some understanding of what we are trying to do with the families out there, together with the victims’ families. One of the top debates and conversations is about building eight new correctional centres in South Africa. From the budget of 2000, which was Minister Skhosana’s budget, four centres will be built, and four from my budget, which was announced by the President this year. We are on track. I know that in Kimberley in the Northern Cape, people are asking: why is our prison not being built?

We are on the way. We have given that assurance to the National Assembly, and we are giving that assurance to this House, that those prisons are going to be built where they are supposed to be built, not anywhere else. We won’t move anything away.

The delays have been because of the multiplicity of processes, which means it is cutting across departments, there is co-ordination between various departments, and the unexpected reality is often encountered at the sites of construction. These complexities may therefore further shift the timeframes and the timelines, but we are sure of one thing: we are going to continue and go ahead with that.

People will ask us which model we will use. There are two models that we are looking at. There is the PPP model, which is very expensive. There is another model, the hybrid model that we have come up with, namely the PFM model. Before we use any model, we are liaising with Treasury and Public Works and we will make sure that the select committee and the portfolio committee are both taken on board before we embark on anything. What is critical is that where they are built, they need to create employment for our people. When we create employment, we also have to create employment for ex-offenders so that they can have somewhere they can go and be able to work. We don’t have a model that we can talk about at the moment. We are dealing with those two models.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the members of the Select Committee on Safety and Security, led by Kgoshi. I’d also like to thank the senior management of my department who are sitting here, led by Commissioner Mti. He is not here today, but the regional commissioners are. I want to thank them for the sterling work they have done.

I want to challenge the NCOP to feature correctional services prominently in their oversight business. I would like the NCOP to play a role. I want to ask members of the NCOP, wherever they are, on weekdays or weekends, to please go and visit correctional centres. Go and understand what a prison is like and what prison life is all about. Please do that, starting from the Chairperson, in order to understand what prison life is all about and look at the plight of women in prison, look at the plight of the young people, ages 14-17, who are in prison and assist us to pull communities together, so that communities can work with us. We have a programme called Operation Masibambesane. Let us hold hands. To be able to fight crime, we have got to hold hands and that is why the Minister of Safety and Security, the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development and I hold hands all the time. We have sessions, which we call “koppestamp” [putting heads together] sessions, where we get together and “stamp koppe”.

We want to reduce the levels of crime, not only where crime happens, but before it happens and also at the end of the sentence of those who have been imprisoned. We need to make sure that we close ranks and make sure that nobody is allowed to just go and commit crimes at any given time in this country. That is what we want to do. We make our societies as peaceful and as good as possible, so that these crimes that do happen time and again can be stopped. I am worried … I am leaving this podium now. Is she here? Can she stand up and let us see her. [Applause.]

The parole board has agreed that she does a month’s pre-release programme and in that month I hope that she also comes to my office and work in my office as part of the reintegration process so that she can get used to going back home. She hasn’t seen her children in 15 years. She committed a crime, but as society, we need to say: she has paid her dues. She now needs to go home. All of us should be saying: Go home, but we do not want to see you again. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

The MINISTER OF SAFETY AND SECURITY: Thank you very much, Chairperson. Good morning to everyone in this House, including my colleagues from the provinces. I have been given what is indicated here as approximately 15 minutes. I will round it off and make it 20 minutes.

I heard the Minister of Correctional Services inviting you, when you have time, to go and visit our correctional facilities in order for you better to understand them. I have not heard him say that in order for you to understand those facilities better, you must actually be locked up because that is how you will build up experience in the end.

The last time I appeared before this House, I indicated our leadership in the provinces regarding policing and I want to indicate what has happened since. There have been changes in terms of our commissioners, the first one being the fact that provincial commissioner Ernest Nkabinde, who was in Mpumalanga, has since retired and we have appointed Commissioner Afrika Khumalo. He is the new commissioner for Mpumalanga. Commissioner McKaiser of the Northern Cape also retired, and that is when we got an opportunity to appoint the first female member of the SAPS as provincial commissioner, Commissioner Nosaziso Mbombo who is now there. There is also a change in the Eastern Cape, where Commissioner Mpongoma has retired and we have shifted Commissioner Landu from the Free State to the Eastern Cape. We are looking for someone to replace him in the Free State.

Our intention is to reduce crime in South Africa on an annual basis by between 7% and 10%, particularly with regard to social crimes, as well as contact crimes. Contact crimes are those crimes where individuals are attacked directly. They include murder and rape. In order for us to do this better, there are changes we are bringing about in the department, among others to reorganise the department so that more and better resources are directed to the provinces. In that respect we are consolidating the personnel pool, as well as material resources, for our provinces, particularly the local police stations so that they can better discharge their obligations of crime prevention and combating of crime.

During the financial year under review, we have recruited 10 000 entry- level constables. In terms of the provincial spread, we have 6 470, with the Free State getting 6% or 606 thereof; the Northern Cape is getting 3% or 338; North West will also get 6%; Limpopo will get 8% or 791; KwaZulu-Natal 8,5% or 858; Gauteng is getting 10% or 884; Mpumalanga gets 7% or 744; Western Cape will get 8% or 778; Eastern Cape will get 8% or 810 people. Apart from those who have been recruited in terms of the Police Services Act, we have people who come from the Public Service. They have been engaged in terms of the Public Service Act. The provinces are therefore going to be getting some of these people and, in the end, the Free State will get 651 people, including those Public Service personnel; the Northern Cape will get 352; North West will get 699; Limpopo will get 840; KwaZulu-Natal will get 945; Gauteng will get 1 065; Mpumalanga will get 782; the Western Cape will get 852 and the Eastern Cape will get 875 people. The provinces will therefore get 7 061 people.

Apart from this, some of the 2 920 members that we have recruited for the protection and security services are going to be directed to the provinces.

The picture therefore in terms of personnel as at 31 March 2006 looks as follows: the North West has 10 329; the Western Cape has 19 735; Northern Cape has 6 144; Free State has 10 267; the Eastern Cape has 17 785; KwaZulu-Natal has 22 527; Mpumalanga has 9 098; Limpopo has 10 611; Gauteng has 31 996, and therefore, the total that we have regarding the provinces is 138 492 people. If you add that to the national total of 170 744, by the end of March 2006, we had in the service, 155 532 members of the SA Police Service. We are heading, by the end of the 2008-09, financial year, for 178 910 members of the SA Police Service. What we are going to do at station level is that as we dissolve the area offices, we are going to put the various police stations into crime clusters, so that there is more effectiveness in terms of co-ordination and command and control. We want to ensure that we are able to discharge the obligations that we have to reduce crime by between 7% and 10% annually.

We will, at the end of the 2009 financial year do an assessment to check if we have been able to do what we intended to do. Among things that we have done and will continue to do has been to place on our land’s borders members of the SA Police Service to replace members from the SANDF who were doing the work on those borders. What we are going to be doing during this year under review is that the land borderline control will continue within the six provinces. But the priority for the current financial year is the Lesotho land borderline, which includes KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and the Eastern Cape.

We did indicate that as we phase out the commando system, we are going to replace it with more police officers, as well as people from our special reservists lists. An amount of R265 million has been approved for the call- up of reservists and will be allocated as follows: During the current financial year R60 million has been allocated for the call-up of 8 000 reservists. The next one, R80 million, will be allocated and we will recruit 10 000 reservists. In the last of the three-year MTEF period, R125 million will be allocated for the call-up of 15 000 reservists. Almost 17 000 reservists were recruited during the last financial year and those are in addition to the pool of reservists that we already had, as indicated in the last Budget Vote speech. A total of 130 of these reservists will be commando members recruited in respect of our exit-entry strategy between the SANDF and the SAPS. It is anticipated that the recruitment of former commando members will increase, as the units that are due for closure are comprised of fully active members. In the end, every one of those active commando members, if indeed they satisfy all the conditions that apply to that level of recruitment, shall have been allocated to the various police service units, so that they become part and parcel of our reservists.

The Department of Public Works and the SAPS agreed in February this year to allow the SAPS to manage its maintenance, property rates, municipal services and leaseholds. And, in terms of the agreement, the SAPS will assume responsibility for its own accommodation requirements, starting from 1 April this year.

The new arrangement, of course, will be monitored by an interdepartmental steering committee, involving the Department of Public Works, the National Treasury and the SA Police Service.

The budget allocation in respect of capital works, maintenance, property rates, municipal services and property leases stands at R1, 627 billion. In the last financial year we renovated 14 police stations, while 19 will be renovated during the current period. We built 13 police stations last year, and 25 new ones will be constructed during the current financial year.

In the previous Budget Vote, I indicated that both the ICD and the Secretariat would be restructured for maximum effectiveness. Work in that direction has already been done. However, attention was focused at national level only as a means to kick-start the process. The next phase will be the structural review and design of the Secretariat at provincial level, a matter that is receiving attention between the Ministry and the members of the executive council responsible for community safety in the provinces, on one level, and the Department for the Public Service and Administration on the other.

At the last Minmec the matter was discussed, and therefore we are looking at ways and means to consolidate that particular front. We are doing this to ensure that the same rules and regulations will be the guiding lights as we finalise the matter.

The management of service delivery complaints has been resolved between the ICD and the Secretariat. The Secretariat, in terms of its mandate, will handle such cases as it enjoys the latitude of monitoring and evaluating the implementation of SAPS policies and policy recommendations on improving service delivery to our communities. Through the Secretariat’s filtering mechanisms, those complaints that fall within the mandate of the ICD and any other stakeholders will be channelled.

An increase of approximately 17,5% marks the budget allocation this financial year of the Independent Complaints Directorate. This has enabled the directorate to continue to improve its internal capacity to investigate complaints, and to raise the level of its administrative ability to deal with the implementation of obligatory legislation and to strengthen co- operative governance.

The ICD is an independent mechanism that was established to ensure that policing in our country takes place within a human rights ethic, and that those officers who do not uphold the rule of law are held accountable for their actions. The ICD, therefore, is an important pillar of that system of control that this government wants to see. It is important for the ICD to fulfil its mandate with adequate resources.

We need, therefore, to indicate that many of the ICD’s problems stem from the fact that it has never had sufficient capacity to do its work effectively. To this end, the ICD will receive a budget increase during the 2006-07 until the 2008-09 MTEF cycle. The R4 million in funding will be used to appoint four provincial heads at senior management level and 24 investigators all over the country. A further 20 investigators will be appointed in the next financial year. In the last year of the MTEF cycle, 29 investigators will be appointed.

If we were to look at our budget allocations between 2003 and the end of the MTEF cycle in 2009, the following increases will be noticeable. For the 2003-04 budget allocation, we were given R22,7 billion, but for the current financial year we have been given R32,6 billion. In the last budget allocation of the 2008-09 financial year, we received R38,5 billion. Of course, what is going to happen is that that budget is going to be used to ensure that we have the necessary wherewithal in order for us to be able to do our work.

There is something that I would like to zoom in on relating to vehicles. This is because now and again people complain about the absence of vehicles, and therefore an inability to do their work because there are no vehicles. Let me just indicate the money that we have spent to acquire vehicles. In the last financial year we used R841 million for vehicles, which amount we have upped this year to R887 million. In the last financial year of the MTEF period, we will use R941 million for vehicles.

Our graph indicates the following: In January 2002 we had 27 000 vehicles for the Police Service. But by March this year we had 35 418 vehicles. Now, what does that mean? What it means is that our personnel: vehicle ratio, for instance, in regard to the current status, is 4:39. In other words, one vehicle of the police accommodates four people.

But it is not always the case that you will have four people in that vehicle, because there are shifts. We really do not understand why there are police officers that continue to say that they do not have these resources. Where are these 35 418 vehicles that we know we have on the ground? This is because that number of vehicles is adequate for the police to be able to do their work.

The operational allocations we are also making indicate that for operations we have R3,7 billion. In terms of this the Western Cape is going to get R415,583 million; the Northern Cape R136,935 million; the Free State R278,741 million; the Eastern Cape R475,70 million; KwaZulu-Natal R617,29 million; Mpumalanga R244,914 million; Limpopo R298,525 million; Gauteng R843,384 million; and the North West R342,683 million. This means that the average percentage grant in operational expenditure in the past five years has been in excess of 105%. [Interjections.]

Are you saying I must step down, Chairperson. Oh, not yet. I only have one minute left to talk about something that all of us should begin to look at. This is the matter of the private security industry. Given in the strike that is happening in this industry and given the fact that the big problem is that the industry itself has a record of very, very bad working conditions. The salaries that they pay are very, very low, and do not fit therefore within the realm of our own policies of a better life for all of the people.

So, when you look at this particular matter, you must know that some of your own provinces, Gauteng, for instance, has 2 008 of these companies. KwaZulu-Natal has 770; the Northern Cape has 54; the Free State has 172; the North West 193; Limpopo 446; the Western Cape 641; the Eastern Cape 319; and Mpumalanga 320. There is a total in South Africa of 4 923 of these security companies. They employ 306 407 people who are registered. I am only talking about registered companies and registered employees. But not every one of the companies that does work in South Africa is properly registered. Not every one of the people who are working in that environment is registered.

There are many people who are undocumented – foreign nationals – who are employed by these companies - exploited - and then they are not registered. Now, whatever the case is, that does not give carte blanche to people to commit crime in the name of a legitimate strike. There is no legitimate strike that encourages the kind of crime we have seen, including the murder of workers. That is intolerable, and we are going to continue to act very, very firmly against those people who are involved in these crimes. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

The DEPUTY MINISTER OF DEFENCE: Madam Chair and hon members, very recently, Cabinet approved the deployment of South African troops to the Comoros to oversee the holding of true and fair elections there. The elections were indeed peaceful and the new president has been inaugurated. The Cabinet has established an inter-ministerial committee on the Democratic Republic of Congo to work towards the success of the first elections there on 30 July and to ensure that peace and stability are sustained. The SA National Defence Force will, amongst other things, be delivering 2 000 tons of material to 14 distribution points in that vast country.

Much has been written in the last year about the state of readiness of the SA National Defence Force. We present our budget to the NCOP today within this context and I would like to assure you that the SANDF is not only ready but will continue to be more ready in the next year and years ahead. Readiness must firstly proceed from the constitutional mandate placed on our shoulders. Secondly, it must be linked to the challenges - unforeseen sometimes - that might arise. Thirdly, it must flow from objectives that our government must achieve.

In so far as national security is a function, firstly of the diplomacy and secondly of the military, we are ready beyond our borders and shores to reinforce all diplomatic missions our nation undertakes. We are busy with this critical defence function.

Since the democratisation of our country and the consequent isolation of our nation from the Community of Nations, South Africa has made a paradigm shift from the mentality of the apartheid years. We think now with the mind of a free nation at liberty to participate with other nations of the world. We not only enter but are welcomed as a partner in all fora. Consequently, our planning knows no bounds. But, we are not drunk with the excitement of this dawn of a new era. We proceed into the wider world with the necessary prudence of those who understand the limitations of their situation, especially that priorities have to be chosen carefully.

In this paradigm shift, Africa remains a priority and central area of focus in the conduct of our foreign policy initiatives. Therefore, we are ready to reinforce continental and regional structures, in particular, the African Union and the Southern African Development Community. Stability is key to the attainment of this goal and that is why the SANDF has carried out the mission to secure Burundi leaders and led the AU’s mission in Burundi. After the recent democratic elections in this country, the SANDF continues to sustain the bourgeoning democracy there.

As institutions of government firms up, the economy of that country revives and a national life normalises, the SANDF will be withdrawn and be made available for deployment in new areas of concern.

We are ready to continue to support the UN through mono-deployments to sustain the stability of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yes, we are relevantly ready as indeed we are ready at work to help secure the elections at the end of July and to promote democracy in the DRC by finalising the integration of the armed forces of an emerging unified DRC.

In keeping with the SADC commitments, we are giving all the necessary support to the SADC organ in order to ensure that sister regional countries not only own the process but also effectively make available additional support that may become necessary for the success of the DRC process. We are not working alone. We do not want to become a Big Brother in Africa; we work with all the countries in Africa.

We are ready and are supporting stability missions in Darfur, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Presently, the SANDF is already assisting the reunification of the armed forces of the Côte d’Ivoire through technical advice to the AU mediation team as well as the Chiefs of Staff as to how to go about the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process, which is normally called DDR.

In all these missions the SANDF has deployed in these theatres of conflicts and tensions some 3 293 men and women, together with the combat equipment. But, the readiness on the SANDF also has to be measured in terms of its performance. We exist for the purpose of executing successful missions. The success of its operations is the only way in which the Department of Defence is assessed and judged by our government, other governments and the international public. The SANDF is ready to act not on behalf of, but together with other countries of our region and continent. To this end, we are ready to expand joint training and joint military exercises with other regional defence forces. We must open up on this front in order to best capacitate our neighbours so as to enable them to join with us in future missions of the region and of the continent.

Added to this are our abiding responsibilities to strengthen SADC headquarters and other relevant structures by both seconding staff and contributing technically. However, our relations with sister regional states is a two-way process. Our efforts have recently welcomed six Zimbabwean air force pilots and six Zimbabwean technicians to assist us with the training of our own young people. With all the successful deployments of the SANDF, we are ready to sustain the continental peace processes because they must eventually log-in through the NEPAD process of development. We are at all times working to ensure that peace is sustained and that our achievements are not undermined.

These peacekeeping operations are conducted and managed in such a manner that the possibilities of peace are firmly laid. We do not want to be in a country and then two years down the line we must be back in that country for peacekeeping.

The SADC Brigade, the regional component of the African Union’s stand-by force, is moving according to plan and we hope it will be fully operational by the middle of 2006. The function of this brigade will be a great step forward in the development of SADC.

Our constitutional mandate also directs us that the Defence Force must be structured and managed as a disciplinary military force. It must be capable of training and preparing men and women who will be imbued with the skills to fit into all the deployments at home and abroad.

In order to meet our readiness requirements, two years ago we embarked on the reorganisation of the top level of the department. We had to get the balance right between the needs of the Public Finance Management Act and clear accountability within the framework of command and control. The restructuring focuses on the areas of logistics and human resources, wherein lies our most serious challenges. I believe that we have now found the correct formula to respond to this challenge.

We have taken serious account of the last report of the Auditor-General and recognised the gravity of qualified audits. I would like to report to the House that the accounting officer, the Defence Secretary, has identified areas where there are problems. They have proposed plans to address and solve those problems.

Furthermore, the review of the Defence Review is nearing completion. The complexity of budgeting for a new force structure and the design pushed our timeframe to the right and the work took longer than we thought but we are back on track and expect to present to Parliament after the winter recess.

Within the Department of Defence, our concentration is on relevant training, which will prepare our men and women to execute those functions that will produce the desired results. Such training must include dispute resolution skills. It must imbue our men and women with skills to initiate post-conflict and reconstruction activities. These must be so because peacekeeping is more than just keeping warring factions apart. On a daily basis, peacekeepers need to do things that are not normally considered military. In short, peacekeepers need to be trained in a range of skills that articulate responsibilities that go beyond the comfort zone of the military base and the military barracks.

In many ways, modern peacekeeping is a much more difficult task than fighting wars. The lessons drawn from the peacekeeping deployments are being incorporated into our training programmes at different levels.

In the current African scenario and for the foreseeable future, our greatest and most urgent enemies are poverty, underdevelopment and environmental degradation. We understand that the roots of conflicts on our continent arise from these problems. We have come to realise that the thrust of our preparation should aim at the culmination of the defeat of these evils. And to be successful we need a more flexible multi-skilled force.

Our constitutional mandate to support the people of South Africa is being demonstrated by our continued support for government activities and initiatives like securing major events, that is, local elections and the 2010 Soccer World Cup and national events like Youth Day, Women’s Day and so forth.

Work on the reorganisation of the defence industry is now in full swing. The Department of Defence requires a defence industry that is able to maintain strategic capabilities. Together with the Department of Public Enterprise, we have set up work groups to examine and align interactions between Armscor and Denel. This may result in the second amendment or even the repeal of the Armscor Act.

The Department of Defence is looking at Denel’s instruction to ensure alignment with the requirements of the Department of Defence. We are aiming for an industrial relationship that allows the SANDF to maintain and develop those strategic and needs capabilities that secure our sovereignty and ensure our ability to sustain industrial consumables without being dependent on others. The South African industry is the largest and the most sophisticated in Africa and we must jealously safeguard it in the interest of our continent.

Emanating from our strategic work sessions and guided by our environmental scan, we have allocated the following moneys as our ministerial priorities for 2006-07: R100 million has been allocated for an intake of 3 000 military skills development officers that has been planned for 2006 and will bring the military skills development system member strength to 9 500 for the 2007 financial year; R50 million for the renewal of the Department of Defence information and communication systems; R121 million for enhancing the capabilities of the Defence Intelligence services; R150 million for readiness and serviceability of operational vehicles; R10 million for defence infrastructure; and R26 million for expanded anti- retroviral roll-out.

Hon members, we can be truly positive about the transformation of the Department of Defence when we consider the outputs of the second gender conference held last week in Benoni. The decision to correct gender imbalance in the department and to incorporate gender issues into post- conflict, reconstruction and development plans will now be directed and managed according to timeframes initiated by the top management of the department. Almost all our services have timeframes now as to how they are going to transform the services. We are no longer talking generally. We want to make sure that there are timeframes and all Chiefs of Services have been told in no uncertain terms that those timeframes must be strictly adhered to.

Special thanks must always go to the rank and file men and women of the SANDF who make our country as a whole so proud. If the Department of Defence is ready, able and more than willing to ensure peace and security across the continent, it is because these are the people who are ready to serve whenever and wherever they are called upon. I thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]

The DEPUTY MINISTER FOR JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Deputy Chairperson, hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers and MECs, hon members and delegates, comrades and friends, ladies and gentlemen, I want to take this opportunity firstly to apologise for the absence of the Minister, Ms Bridgett Mabandla, who through other prior commitments could not deliver this speech today.

Hon members, this policy debate takes place against the background of several milestones in our young democracy. One of these milestones is the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the adoption of our Constitution. On the occasion of the celebration of this anniversary President Thabo Mbeki, addressing a Joint Sitting of Parliament, noted that, and I quote:

Clearly the 10th anniversary of the adoption of our Constitution also provides us with an opportunity for the nation to assess the progress we have made and the problems we have experienced, as we worked to build the society and consolidate the democracy visualised in our Constitution. The milestone we celebrate today should also serve to reinvigorate the transformation of the unity and solidarity we built during the course of our struggle for freedom into a durable partnership for reconstruction and development and the building of nonracial, nonsexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.

As we look back over the last ten years of our constitutional democracy, we are encouraged and guided by former Indian President Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, who observed that, and I quote:

The past may become either an opportunity or an obstacle. Everything depends on what we make of it and not what it makes of us.

Hon members, we are exhorted by our recent past to continue with the transformation policies and programmes that we actuated in 1994. All the activities of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, in pursuit of the vision of our society as encapsulated in our Constitution, are underpinned by the following strategic goals: Access to justice for all; transforming justice in line with the democratic values of our national Constitution and enhancing organisational efficiencies.

In order to help us meet these strategic goals, the department’s Medium- Term Expenditure Framework baseline allocation grows from R7,3 billion in 2006-07 to R8 billion in 2007-08, an increase of 10,33%, and to R8,8 billion in 2008-09, an increase of 9,96%. The 2006 MTEF allocations include new allocations of R350 million for 2006-07, R550 million for 2007-08 and R900 million for 2008-09.

Hon members are aware that our department is a national department without any provincial level of governance, yet we have indirect administration in all parts of the country in the form of courts, Masters’ offices, State Attorneys’ offices, Legal Aid Board offices and so on.

This situation presents the department with a challenge to organise itself in a manner that the interconnection between the head office and the regional offices should be a seamless one that still delivers on the departmental mandate at a decentralised level, without duplicating key resources.

This requires a balanced and sensible, yet flexible, horizontal and vertical distribution of functions between the centre and the decentralised workstations without compromising overall managerial and financial coherency and accountability. As a department we have taken a conscious decision to revive and strengthen our regional level of administration. These structures are meant to be our point of entry into provinces. Through an organisational design process, we have adapted the delegations to all regional heads to provide them with authority and new functions in the regions.

To this end, we have recreated the positions of regional heads who will manage and give leadership to our provincial teams and are expected to play a pivotal role in the provincial Justice cluster activities. The ideal management echelon of the department is underpinned by our philosophy that effective service delivery at operational level requires deliberate effort to decentralise authority and build strong management teams and structures at the provincial level in the manner I have explained above.

Our commitment to effective regional offices is also borne out by an increase in allocations to the provinces. KwaZulu-Natal’s allocation has increased by 31% to R265 million for the 2006-07 financial year. The Eastern Cape’s allocation has increased by 23% to R282 million; Gauteng by 32% to R317 million; Mpumalanga by 38% to R89 million; Limpopo by 26% to R160 million; the Western Cape by 34% to R164 million; the Free State by 26% to R136 million; the Northern Cape by 61% to R61 million and North West by 41% to R121 million.

Hon members, you will recall that during last year’s policy debate in this House, Minister Mabandla stated that, and I quote:

We are continuously looking at the provision of adequate infrastructure, especially in areas where there was none before.

The issue of the equitable distribution of court infrastructure is at the core of our constitutional mandate. Perhaps the essence of this is well captured in a speech by the former, late Chief Justice Ismail Mahomed at the University of Cape Town in 1999, when he asked, and I quote:

Can we effectively and meaningfully build a new and united nation, when the condition of one part of that nation is, as a result of this legacy, manifestly and illegitimately so different from the condition of the other part of what must constitutionally, aspirationally and politically be the same nation?

It is a fact that in many townships and rural areas, court facilities are often inadequate, and sometimes dilapidated or even nonexistent. People in these areas often have to travel long distances just to get access to basic justice services.

It is for this reason that we have made a conscious decision to deliberately shift capital work resources in favour of previously disadvantaged as well as rural areas. In the previous financial year, a total budget of R208 million was spent on the construction of new facilities and additions to existing ones.

The following are some of the new buildings that are being planned in previously disadvantaged areas and rural areas and their expected completion dates are in the current financial year: Daveyton and Tsakane, both in Gauteng; Motherwell in the Eastern Cape; Sekgosese in Limpopo and Madadeni in KwaZulu-Natal.

We are also planning to build seven other courts in these previously disadvantaged and rural areas and will soon be inviting tenders. These areas are: Colesberg, Galeshewe and Augrabies, all in the Northern Cape; Thabong in the Free State; Mitchell’s Plain in the Western Cape; Ekangala in Mpumalanga and Kagiso in Gauteng.

Hon members will recall that in 2005 we outlined the Re Aga Boswa project, which had just completed a pilot within the KwaZulu-Natal province. The refined version of Re Aga Boswa, which seeks to affirm the principles of separation of powers as enshrined in the Constitution, will ensure that magistrates and judges, who are also heads of courts, are further relieved of administration functions to concentrate on their judicial work.

We firmly believe that this will lead to increased court productivity and the quality of judgments as senior judicial officers can devote their time to judicial and not administrative functions. Through Re Aga Boswa, 58 new area court managers and 217 positions of court managers positions have been created countrywide and are currently being filled. Enhancing capacity also entails the development of the country’s human resources, without which the aspirations of the people will be frustrated. Human resource development is a central pillar of our Constitution and it encompasses a pooling of the country’s resources to develop the educational and skills base of our people.

The department takes the training and development of our staff very seriously. We believe that such training is integral to our efforts to widen and improve access to justice for all. It is for this reason that we have initiated processes to transform our training institution, the Justice College.

The transformation process is underway and includes looking at governance structures, processes and systems and revamping the curriculum. In its existing format, the college does not serve the training and developmental needs of all its main stakeholders. It has therefore become necessary to transform the college to comply with these changes and to serve the training needs of the entire department.

Through a transformed Justice College, training will be extended to all professionals and officials of the department, including State Attorneys, Masters, Family Courts, registrars, court managers and interpreters. Appropriate capacity is being developed to deliver on the extended mandate.

The training of the department’s interpreters is also high on our agenda. To enhance their service delivery, the college continues to present courses focusing on difficult concepts. We have also embarked on management training courses for senior interpreters to facilitate and develop their leadership skills.

Part of the transformation of Justice College will include the introduction of e-learning. The introduction of e-learning will therefore contribute to the strategic objectives of improving access to training interventions.

This method will increase the number of learners, as they will not have to travel to a central place, for example Pretoria, to attend a course and be away from their workstations for that period. E-learning happens at the workplace, at their desks, wherever they are. This would cut the costs of travelling, accommodation and allowances while continuously and incrementally broadening our skills base. The framework and costing for this system is being finalised.

Hon members, on the other hand, as the training of judicial officers is the preserve of the judiciary itself, a joint task team comprising officials of the department and the office of the Chief Justice is currently working on a framework for judicial education for judicial officers.

We are confident that a proposed framework with its cost implications will be completed this year to enable the Minister to engage Cabinet and National Treasury on the matter. Training of magistrates at Justice College will be phased out as the intended institution commences training of judges and magistrates.

Hon members, during last year’s Budget Vote debate in this House, Minister Mabandla indicated that, and I quote:

Because we are continuously seeking to expand the frontiers in creating a better life for all South Africans, that we, as the JCPS cluster, will conduct a comprehensive cluster review of the entire criminal justice system process.

I am pleased to report that Cabinet has endorsed this review process. The challenge is now to concretise and implement it. The objectives of the review are to: Firstly, identify areas for improvement including business, representivity and modernisation issues. Secondly, to provide a composite set of recommendations for consideration to improve the system and thirdly, to develop a framework to measure and track the performance of the system, including a data collection model across the system.

The review is led by a review team, which in turn has engaged a research team to investigate the root causes of blockages in the flow of the cases through the system and design solutions to address the blockages. The teams comprise representatives from the various JCPS cluster departments and National Treasury, members of the judiciary, the Legal Aid Board, the SA Law Reform Commission and Statistics SA.

A reference group of eminent people who possess expertise in the field of criminal justice will be convened regularly to contribute to the review process. The Minister is politically responsible for the project, whilst the director-general is responsible for the overall co-ordination of the project and a dedicated project manager is being recruited to manage the day-to-day activities of the project, and this is important. It is my view that it is important for all committees in Parliament within the JCPS cluster to discuss their attitude and their role within this review process.

Hon members, as part of our wider programme to enhance access to quality, affordable, prompt, efficient and effective justice services, we will continue to strengthen the small claims courts. The small claims courts constitute an inexpensive tool that was created to settle minor civil disputes in an informal manner.

In this financial year the department has budgeted, for the first time ever, R3,1 million for the small claims courts. The Swiss Agency for Development has committed a further R4,5 million over three years to a programme that seeks to strengthen and roll out small claims courts to rural and peri-urban areas. The strategic objectives of the programme include: Providing access to all, in particular the poor and the vulnerable; establishing systems and rules of court that are accessible and easy to understand; providing trained administrative support staff; attracting and retaining commissioners. We envisage that the roll-out of the programme will commence within the next month or two.

Turning to the sheriffs’ profession, there are a number of challenges that still face the profession in terms of the transformation process, including the race and gender profile of the profession. As of 31 December 2005, almost 68% of the sheriffs were white and only 8% were female.

The department is working jointly with the Board of Sheriffs to conduct a comprehensive audit for the profession. This audit will enable us to consider the implementation of some of the transformation programmes such as the competition policy, which was introduced through an amendment to the Sheriffs Act.

I am informed that the audit will be completed in the near future. Furthermore, R20 million has been allocated in the budget to transformation of the projects like the sheriffs’ profession.

To conclude, I wish to thank the chairperson of the select committee, Kgoshi Mokoena, and committee members for playing an important role in exercising their oversight functions in an energetic and focused manner. Let me just add here that we will be available to assist you in performing those functions at all times.

I urge this House wholeheartedly and unequivocally to support the budget of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development for this financial year. [Applause.]

Kgoshi M L MOKOENA: Chairperson, hon Ministers, MECs, special delegates, colleagues, comrades and friends, on behalf of the calculating and always sober Select Committee on Security and Constitutional Affairs, I would like to thank the Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development for always leading his department during budget briefings.

He personally led the department during the budget briefing this year. I am aware that it was not the first time he did this. It is true that teamwork makes common people attain uncommon results. That gave us, the committee members, a chance to engage him on policy and political issues that affect the department. You have been doing this since you came into this portfolio.

The same thing goes for the Minister of Correctional Services, who is not shy personally to communicate with this committee through its chairperson - yours truly. It is no longer a surprise to receive your call, hon Minister, to discuss issues that affect your department. Again, it was so inspiring for the committee to be addressed by the brand-new Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, hon Loretta Jacobus. The respect you show this committee, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, is always appreciated.

Yes, it is true that there are no noble professions, but there are noble people who are doing what they were born to do. It is proof, once more, that commitment is initiated by creativity, maintained by competence and sustained by character.

I received apologies from other Ministers and Deputy Ministers who, unfortunately, could not make it to the budget briefings owing to their very tight schedules. I know they are also willing to engage the committee. And, I am optimistic that one day they will do the same.

Ga le na motlogapele, le na le motšhabiši wa lona. [We can start studying at the same time, but not everybody will succeed.]

The exodus of prosecutors to the magistracy is still a worrying factor. What makes it even more worrying is that those who are leaving are senior prosecutors with much experience. If things are going on in this fashion, what can we do? But I think we can do something, because we can. Hon Deputy Minister, there are also disturbing reports that there are some officials in the departments who misuse moneys paid by - and I underline this - some reliable fathers, partners and boyfriends for maintenance. Our poor mothers and sisters, after having been assured by their former husbands or partners that money has been paid, go and queue at those offices only to be told by those officers that there is no money, while in fact the money ends up in their pockets. If things happen in this fashion, hon Deputy Minister, what can we do? Please, let’s do something, because we can.

Our judicial officers are doing their best to make sure that cases are being finalised as quickly as possible. If cases are not finalised expeditiously, many of the complainants end up not attending these courts and that makes it easy for the accused to be acquitted easily. I know we can still improve on this one.

However, hon Deputy Minister, it is a fact that there are those who are not fully committed to their work. I am referring to the judicial officers. We want to thank those who are really dedicated to their work. At the same time, if it is proved that that there are those who are dragging their feet, what can be done? Let’s do something, because we can.

A lot was said about the four prisons, as referred to by the Minister of Correctional Services. A lot was said about the rechannelling of funds by the department. A lot was said about corruption in the department. Our thanks go to your officials, hon Minister, because they fully explained to the committee exactly what transpired. We agreed that we would further discuss issues if there were things that had to be explained.

What made us even happier is that your officials were very open and frank with us as a committee. We appreciate their honesty. On behalf of the dynamic select committee, I would like to convey our appreciation for the professionalism displayed by your regional commissioners when Kgoshi Mokoena’s detachment visited their regions. Well done, guys. Please note that, and be ready because, from now onwards, the committee is going to dedicate 70% of its time to oversight and only 30% to legislation. We are coming, just be ready.

Escapes from our prisons have declined. But it would be nice next time when we get these briefings to receive a zero percentage concerning escapes. In order to try and curb this completely, what can we do? I know we can do something, simply because we can.

There are disturbing reports about inmates who committed suicide inside our prisons. I wonder what is the cause. Concerning this, let’s ask ourselves, why? What can we do to avoid this? Therefore let’s do something, because we can.

The utilisation of the private sector and companies when recruiting your staff was debated at length by the committee. The department explained why they opted for that route. What made us happy is that this will not be a permanent arrangement. We agreed that we would further discuss this matter to see if we can get a permanent solution to this one. In our language we say: Sethikwa ga se ne matla. Gape bobedi bo bolaya noga. [You are powerless when you are attacked from all sides. It is always better to fight together.]

When the committee visited some police stations, it was clear that there were very few female detectives. If the situation is like this, what can we do? Hon Minister of Safety and Security, let’s do something about this, because we can.

It pains some of us when people who committed serious crimes are let go simply because of poor investigations. We cannot allow this to continue forever. I want to suggest that, as a department, we should invest more on retraining our investigators or detectives. Perhaps I should put this as a question to you, hon Minister, that if the situation is like this, what can we do? Let’s do something, because we can.

There is this worrying tendency by some police officers who, for whatever reasons, kill their families and later commit suicide. We understand that the kind of work they are doing is not for the faint-hearted. They are at times frustrated, stressed and so on. But killing your own family cannot be a solution. I suggest that the department should use professional counsellors to assist these members. In your opinion, hon Minister, what can we do to assist these members? Let’s do something about it, because we can.

In the previous debate, I raised the question of transformation in our Defence Force. I know, Deputy Minister, you will respond to this. During the budget briefing, the committee was informed that our Defence Force would play a meaningful role in preparations for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. This was welcomed by committee members. We still need more information as to exactly which role is going to be played by our Defence Force.

The question of border control by our national Defence Force needs to be looked at. It is vital that we clearly distinguish roles played by the force and Home Affairs officials on our borders. I am saying this because, in my understanding, our force is not directly involved in paper work or administration on those borders. But, regarding whatever wrong or corrupt acts are committed on those borders, the finger will also be pointed at our force. The question is, why? Let’s do something about this, because we can.

My colleague, hon Moseki, will deal extensively with the issue concerning our force that is deployed in other foreign countries. But in one sentence, I want to convey our sincere thanks to those men and women and their families who have sacrificed everything in this country to go and participate in peacekeeping in those foreign countries.

Committee members, we have done it again. In two weeks, we managed to take 16 budget briefings from the four departments and their divisions. After those robust but honest engagements, all committee members, in one voice, said: “We support those Budget Votes”. You, once more, committee members, displayed your political maturity. There was no bickering, no filibustering, no point-scoring and no unnecessary objections to those Votes. I just hope and wish that your contributions would be acknowledged by your respective political parties.

Our policy, as a committee, is that if you don’t want your dreams to come true, it is easy, just oversleep. [Laughter.] [Applause.]

Mr D A WORTH: Deputy Chairperson, hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers, and MECs present, firstly the DA wishes to thank those dedicated police officials who try and prevent crime and detect criminals under extremely difficult and often dangerous circumstances.

As has been alluded to, the Security, Justice and Constitutional Affairs cluster consists of three spheres inter-linking with one another. For instance, the police, safety and security, are supposed to catch the criminals, who then appear in the courts, which is justice, and, if found guilty, receive the appropriate sentence and serve their sentence in prison, which is correctional services.

However, due to the overcrowding in the prisons, the Department of Correctional Services, under a special remission of sentenced prisoners, released some 30 000 prisoners between 12 June to 9 August last year. Many of the prisoners had not been fully rehabilitated and did not have any work. Some of those recently released inmates have been rearrested and the Department of Correctional Services intends to release more.

I would like to thank Correctional Services also for their nice tracksuits. I will visit the prisoners in Bloemfontein, as long as I don’t get locked up. To stop this endless revolving-door cycle of crime, I am sure that the Minister of Safety and Security would agree that the best deterrent to the would-be criminals is what Judge Fagan refers to as the certainty of detention and punishment. The message is one of law enforcement and capacity.

Our national Police Commissioner recently stated that the Independent Complaints Directorate had outlived its usefulness and should be dissolved. The members of the saps would then be left alone to police themselves. Virtually on a daily basis there are incidents of police misconduct and the involvement of police in criminal activity.

However, I am very pleased to hear from our Minister here today that indeed their powers will be strengthened and widened so that South Africans can continue to have faith in their police service. However, South Africa is riding a tidal wave of crime at the moment. A better word to describe this situation would be a tsunami of crime. [Interjections.] It is not just the level of crime, but the violence that accompanies the crime. To state that this is just the paranoia of certain groups and the press is totally untrue.

In a recent international survey South Africa was rated highly as far as economic policies were concerned and poorly in crime, safety and security. The crime levels in South Africa are also given as a reason for the difficulty in recruiting the much-needed skilled immigrants to this country.

Crime occurs in all areas and across all racial divides. To have passengers thrown off moving trains and taxi drivers shooting at one another is not normal in a civilised society. What sort of people hit an aged women to death with a meat-hammer, rape a pregnant women and terrorise a family for hours, such as happened in Gordon’s Bay.

Die bekende vermaaklikheidskunstenaar Soli Philander se skoonma mevrou Eugene Shaifer van my provinsie, die Vrystaat, is Woensdag in haar huis in Parys wreed aangerand en vermoor. Mnr Philander sê, en ek haal hom aan, “Ek staan hier met my familie en ons verlies en vra dat almal iets doen om ‘n einde aan die geweld te bring”. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)

[The mother-in-law of the well-known entertainer Soli Philander, Mrs Eugene Shaifer, from my province, the Free State, was brutally attacked and murdered in her home in Parys on Wednesday. Mr Philander says, and I quote him: “I am standing here with my family and our loss and request everyone to do something to put an end to the violence.”]

Farmers are no longer safe on their farms and illegal immigrants stream across our borders at will. Despite drug busts, drugs are still freely available all over. Whilst the SAPS have recruited some 12 000 personnel for the year 2005-06, some 4 000 resign every year.

Most of the new recruits are entry-level constables with little or no working experience. The police with experience have either resigned, suffer from stress or been sidelined as a result of affirmative action. This has led to a comedy of errors, such as prisoners escaping from the courts and money, half of which was recovered from an airport heist, being stolen yet again from a police station in Benoni.

It is no wonder that certain communities want to take the law into their own hands, as they believe law and order have broken down completely. The law-abiding citizens of this country have retreated behind security fences whilst thugs roam our streets and suburbs with impunity. There is a psychosis of fear taking hold and war must be declared on the criminals – enough is enough!

Mk F NYANDA: Sihlalo lohlon, Tindvuna, emalunga, nebalingani, kwakha emajele lamanyenti kutawufaka sandla ekwehliseni lizinga lekugcwala kakhulu kwemajele. Loko akusho-ke kutsi emajele lamanyenti atayehlula lenkinga yekugcwala, kodvwa tikhumulo tekulungiswa kwetimilo ngutona tidzingeka kakhulu kutekwakheka tikhala tetinhlelo tekuvusetelwa kwetimilo.

Yebo, inhlobo yetikhumulo tekulungisa timilo ibonakala ihambisana netinjongo tekuvusetelwa kwetimilo. Kungafaka emajele bantfu labanyenti kungafanani nemajele akadzeni labehlose nje kuvisa bantfu buhlungu kuphela nekujezisa.

Leliphuzu leli lihambisana netincumo tentsandvo yelinyenti nenjongo yekutivikela. Kubonakala kuvela kuyo injongo lekutsiwa yi-RDP, kutsi inhloso yelijele akusiko nje kuvalela bantfu lababoshiwe kuphela kodvwa kubaniketa tinsita tekutsi balungiswe emiphefumulweni, kanye netinhlelo tekubacecesha batfole emakhono.

Kwakha nekulawula emajele kumele kutsatfwe ngumbuso etinhlangnweni tangasense letibuke inzuzo kuphela. Loku kuhambisana nenchubomgomo yekutiphendvulela neliciniso lekutsi lilungelo nemsebenti wekujezisa kwembuso.

Asingabati kutsi kwakhiwa kwetikhumulo tekuvusetelwa kwetimilo kuyahambisana nalenkinga yekugcwala kakhulu kwemajele, futsi kuhambisana nesifiso sekuhlalisa tephulamtsetfo etindzaweni tebantfu. Kantsi futsi netephulamtsetfo tifanele tihlaliswe endzaweni lekhombisa buntfu.

Tindlela tetinkantolo tekuniketa tigwebo kumele tihambisane nekutsi tiboshwa tehlukahlukene. Akukafaneli kutsi tiphatfwe ngalokufananako ngobe tigebengu netephulamtsetfo, tinetimo letehlukene. Sibonelo nje, akusiwo onkhe emacala lekufanele ajeziswe ngekuyiswa emajele. Mayelana nemacala lamancane, bantfu labangaphasi kweminyaka lengu 18 kufanele batfole tigwebo letilula, ngaphandle kwanangabe kulicala lelikhulu.

Tinkantolo tekujezisa kufanele tigcugcutele kutsi kusetjentiswe letinye tindlela tetigwebo, kunekufaka bantfu emajele. Letindlela tifaka kubuyiselwa kwebuntfu, baniketwe sikhatsi sekutsi nabo batihlole batibone futsi kutsi bonile, bente liphutsa. Kuhle banikwe nesikhatsi sekuvivinywa, tigwebo tilengiswe, kuhlehliswa kwetigwebo naletinye tindlela letinsha letingahle tisetjentiswe.

Lenye indlela leyehlukile nalebalulekile kunekugweba kwekutsi kuvikelwe bugebengu kuncishiswe buphuya bese kwakhiwa simo senhlalo lencono. (Translation of Siswati paragraphs follows.)

[Ms F NYANDA: Chairperson, hon Ministers, hon members and fellow colleagues, the construction of prisons will assist in reducing the current problem of overcrowding. This does not mean that by so doing the problem will be eradicated, but this may be achieved by transforming prisons into correctional centres.

It is widely recognised that the rehabilitation of offenders and the correction of offending behaviour is the most important long-term solution to this problem of overcrowding, whereas the idea of imprisoning all offenders will be reverting to the apartheid ways, where the only aim of incarceration was to torture and punish them.

This aim is also in line with the existing principles of democracy and of providing a just, peaceful and safe society. It seems to be borne of the objectives of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, RDP, not to punish offenders but to give them skills, thereby providing prisoners with opportunities to stop offending.

The government must retain responsibility for the construction and management of these prisons. This principle is consistent with the constitutional principles of transparency and accountability, which remains a responsibility of the state and cannot be transferred to private companies that are only interested in making profit.

Sentencing by the courts must take into account the different situations that the offenders are in and customise each sentence to suit the specific situation. These sentencing options include a number of non-custodial options, which do not involve imprisonment of the offender and are used mainly for first-time offenders under the age of 18 according to the department’s values of the humane treatment of prisoners.

Sentencing officials must make use of other sentencing options such as releasing offenders on bail, which allows for a sentencing officer to release an accused on bail with the provision that the accused is supervised by a probation officer; suspended sentences, pre-trial diversion programmes and many other alternatives to imprisonment.

Other alternatives to a prison sentence also include crime prevention strategies, poverty reduction strategies and the improvement of the socio- economic dispensation.]

Safety and related matters are of priority in the department. In accordance with comprehensive and effective strategy for security in prisons, the Department of Correctional Services would make use of its budget in its entirety. The current facility programmes are among the advanced technological forms of enhancing security and safety in correctional centres.

Those safety projects include information technology, fencing, TV monitors, and x-ray scanners in order to promote safety and security of prisoners, unsentenced detainees and staff members. Within this project it is of vital importance to implement the recommendations of the Jali Commission, particularly regarding the managerial aspect of improvement.

Lastly, the Budget must ensure effective oversight by the Department of Correctional Services. We support the Budget Vote. Thank you. [Applause.]

Mr T MHLAHLO (Eastern Cape): Madam Chair, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers, members of the House, before I make my own presentation from the province, allow me to introduce Sipho Setha Ndalase from the Eastern Cape. This girl came here especially to observe the speech of the Minister yesterday and today she is also attending this House. We have an agreement to work very closely together. We will be collaborating on matters of safety and security and especially on issues that affect young children and women in our society in general. [Applause.]

This year sees the 30th anniversary of June 16, which marks the outstanding contribution of young people in our country. It also sees 50 years of hope, marching for freedom and represents the strides of women generally in our society. Therefore I am presenting this statement after we have observed major activities in our province as part of the programme of the country in acknowledging the contributions of our people. As we commemorate these events, we call on all our people and we have also mobilised almost all stakeholders in the province to participate, working very closely with the department of safety, and there is liaison to make sure that we undertake our task of cementing relations between communities of our province and our law-enforcement agencies so that we can achieve greater mobilisation and inclusivity in participation towards building national unity and social cohesion.

We have observed that our task is to develop a collaborative security community in the Eastern Cape so that we can jointly respond to the challenges of crime as well as the whole question of attack against our women and young children. We continue to undertake all these steps because we want to take part in making sure that we contribute to poverty alleviation, prevention of conflict and mobilisation of our community so that we can create free conditions for all our people to be able to move around our province.

Our strategic objective is to secure a situation in which human security is matched by issues of development, co-operation and peace. Poverty, for sure, is a silent threat to human security because it is an element of structured violence that can easily explode into open conflict. We have therefore factored in a number of responsive approaches and we are working together with many players in the Eastern Cape province. We undertook a number of initiatives in responding to the provincial growth and development plan objectives, for which the department convened a community tourism safety summit in Coffee Bay in an effort to encourage the involvement of communities in tourism safety matters. Coffee Bay is one of the important areas in the province of the Eastern Cape and this resulted in the establishment of a community tourism safety committee in the O R Tambo district municipality, which drives safety strategies for safer tourism development as well as community participation.

We intended to further roll out this programme to other districts in the province, in partnership with government departments. We are presently planning to use the committee to establish safety services for tourism in preparation for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

We held the annual provincial Steve Tshwete Games against Crime and HIV/Aids in an effort to promote the maximum participation of young people in sport against crime. In our continuous improvement of the criminal justice system, the department, in partnership with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, SA Police Service, Business against Crime and Correctional Services, successfully launched the integrated justice court centres in three magistrates’ courts in New Brighton, Uitenhage and Zwelitsha.

The provincial cabinet has adopted the provincial crime prevention strategy as a base document to discharge our crime-combating programme. The main focus areas of this strategy are to strengthen community participation against crime, to prevent violence and corruption within the SA Police Service and to strengthen the criminal justice system approach so that we can all collaborate with all these departments in our province.

The department’s flagship programme of support to policing of crimes against women and children in the Eastern Cape, which is funded by the European Union, has seen the development and approval of a community safety forum model which will be rolled out to districts and local communities this year. This model will strengthen our interventions at local government level in an integrated way.

The department’s flagship programme has also seen three baseline studies for measuring the SA Police Service client service, customer satisfaction and domestic violence; training of 1 009 South African police members at identified priority stations; equipping of family, children and sexual units; and designing of a monitoring and evaluation tool for the Independent Complaints Directorate. These have actually provided a useful platform for all the departments that are working together concerning our approach around the justice system.

We have seen and observed transformation within the SA Police Service, and this includes the enlistment of 1 912 constables and the enlistment of 50 personnel through the Public Service Act. We have seen an improvement because of continuous oversight regarding transformation initiatives such as equity and resource redistribution in the police service.

We have observed gender representation in senior management positions. Nine women were promoted to the rank of senior superintendent; two were promoted to director level and one to the rank of assistant commissioner in the province. We have also seen an improvement in vehicle availability. In this province, 810 vehicles and 12 motorcycles were purchased for the police at a cost of R95 million.

Infrastructure improvement, which is a great intervention because we discharge the oversight responsibility, has seen an improvement in All Saints, Lady Frere, Mthatha, Motherwell, Mdantsane and the provincial head office of the police. They have changed radically. All these are very concrete changes that we are beginning to observe in our province.

Concerning community policing, in order to ensure uniformity and the functioning of community forum boards we have completed the review of the constitution of these structures. The elections of community police forum structures were started and completed by the end of April. For the first time this year the department has allocated R1,2 million to make sure that we provide support to the CPFs and the boards. These funds will be used to strengthen the fight against crime and to capacitate the CPFs so that they can fulfil their mandate.

The levels of crime have been reduced radically and I think our collaboration with all major stakeholders have also assisted in the Eastern Cape province. We have witnessed a number of operations that have been undertaken by the police service. These operations include Operation Basadi, Operation Train Safety, festive season Operation Sting, Operation Bambanani, Operation Greed and Operation Roadrunner. All these operations have actually been able to reflect a very decisive collaboration between the law enforcement agencies and the communities of the province.

We also observed a very great intervention, in which 4 090 roadblocks were undertaken by the law enforcement agencies working with traffic officers. Stop-and-search operations amounting to 77 066 were conducted as well as 1 021 searches. All these have repositioned our law enforcement agencies. [Time expired.]

Mr L RAMATLAKANE (Western Cape): Chairperson, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, colleagues, members of the NCOP. I also want to acknowledge the presence of Unathi Dyantyi from Knysna, who is visiting us in Cape Town. [Applause.] We have in our programme begun to develop 100 youth role models in the province and we hope that indeed she becomes one of those role models.

In this week we joined the Deputy Minister on training in the Western Cape. We ended up in Delft together at a launch that was taking place to fight crime together. I also just want to thank the members of the portfolio committee who braved the weather to be attend that training in the morning to undertake an awareness programme around the issue of children in the Western Cape. In the province, within the strategy that we have, we have people who are problem-solving-oriented.

Two weeks ago we tabled the budget in the Western Cape and within the budget we understood the challenges that the Western Cape is faced with currently. The challenges that we have and continue to be such are crime against women and children, the sporadic upsurge of gang violence on the Cape Flats and in the townships, the violence in Hanover Park that has been taking place against gangsterism, the emergence of small-boy-gangs in our townships, the taxi drive–by shootings that have been taking place in the province and of course the emerging issue concerning the degree of conflict between brothers from Africa – the xenophobic issues. Those are the issues that we have identified as challenges that we must continue to grapple with as we continue to build the Western Cape, which is a home for all.

As we grapple with these challenges as government, we understand and we realise that there are those from the opposition who continuously politicise the challenges that all of us as a society are faced with, which are not supposed to be politicised.

The tabling of the Minister’s budget will obviously complement the work that we are doing in the Western Cape. I’ve listened carefully about the operational budget.

But with regard to the restructuring I want to say that within the mandate of the Cabinet of reducing contra-crime by between 7% and 10%, we understand that to be the challenger, or as a foot soldier on the ground, we must continue to implement that in earnest so that we can indeed do what is right – protect our people, children and women and give them the freedom that they have waited for so long; and in a peaceful environment.

I can say that in the previous financial year we managed to get to 7,5% in the Western Cape in the reduction of contra-crime.

In the restructuring of the police that is taking place in terms of flattening the structure, we are participants in it and we support it. And, indeed I need to add that in our work we want to see simultaneous implementation as the consultation happens so that we can continue to empower those police stations more and more.

In understanding the challenges of women and children, and particularly the challenge we have of missing children in the Cape, we established what we call Child Rapid Response Unit, which is indeed the volunteer core that works together with the police. In this we have been able to score a success rate of 95% in the cases of those children who were reported as missing. Of course there are the unfortunate three who were found dead and four are still outstanding; searches continue.

We continue to build strength and the integration of the law enforcement agency, making sure that the law enforcement agencies complement each other and there’s very little competition amongst them.

Here, I refer to all those that are national in character that we continue to co-ordinate between the police and such in order to make sure that each one complements the other in the fight against crime. In this connection we will continue to interact with the Department of Correctional Services on the issues that we think are important in the context of the province in dealing with crime that spills over from prison, and continue to engage within that forum.

Again, within this context, we’ll continue to interact with justice around some of the challenges that we also continue to experience. For example, the high-flyer project that continues to be driven by this integrated law enforcement agency continues to produce and show results. But if we are not strengthening that particular work, we should be worried about the setback that we might experience. As I’ve already indicated, the overarching strategy that we put in place in the province is to make sure that communities themselves are central to the fight against crime because we know and understand that communities are the best repository of information. In this connection there are the Bambanani volunteers, and I’m sure that my colleague in the Eastern Cape has started implementing Bambanani against Crime.

We understand that the philosophy of making sure that the communities are central in the fight against crime will indeed produce lasting results in the fight against crime. In this connection we can say that in the past three years in succession we have been deployed together with police and these volunteers in the fight against crime. Year after year, we have been reducing contracrime in that particular period.

In the first year it was 18% and 27% respectively, between December and January of this year that we have just passed. These are the results that are positive and therefore we draw the conclusion that in this we would continue to do what is right – get the communities to fight crime together with the police.

In the same connection we are focusing on schools, because in the Western Cape there is a sickness that we continue to have in our society – the issue about building social cohesion, the issue of abuse of children, the drugs in our schools, the emergence of boy- gangs of 13-year-olds in townships like Gugulethu, Old Cross Roads and Nyanga.

This is a challenge that we, as a move forward, need to drive together with the community to build social cohesion so that communities are able to say to their children: Don’t belong to a gang when you are 13 years of age.

Regarding drugs and gangsterism in schools, we are implementing a programme called the school safety programme, with 500 volunteers permanently at those schools working together with the sector policing. In this we believe that we’ll continue to show a reduction as we move forward.

We are happy to say that in the Western Cape, about the issue of dealing with cases and the backlog in cases this year, police have declared that we have declared this year as the year of detectives, to build capacity among the detectives; to be able to make sure that there’s no backlog in cases.

To end, we say that we will continue to drive this year together with the community to make sure that indeed we change the perception that crime is going up. In fact, we can say that there is a downward trend in terms of the fight in the Western Cape – in fact, in the country as a whole. So, together we know that our people would be the ones that are protecting us – they’ll be the ones that would give the message when those who are whingeing on the side say crime is going up; so that the community would say we are sure that today is better and therefore tomorrow would be better than today. Thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]

Mr M A MZIZI: Chairperson, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, MECs and colleagues, the time allocated to me does not allow me to go into detail on each and every department. I will therefore only touch on critical issues dealt with under these Votes.

Looking at the Justice budget allocated and the work that lies ahead for the department, one wonders whether the budget will be sufficient. To name but a few areas that must be addressed, there is the backlog in court cases, appeal court cases, and making the courts user-friendly and to improve public confidence in the verdicts of the courts.

Moving to Safety and Security, the IFP welcomes this year’s budget. Some critical issues remain, however. Very importantly, the police are obviously not making much headway in catching the killers of farmers and farmworkers. These cases are not solved quickly and, when they do reach the courts, convictions are not always possible because of poor investigation by the police.

Another issue is abuse of women and children. We in the IFP proposed the officers be intensively trained to better deal with such cases. Moving on to Correctional Services, the IFP supports the budget for this year. The critical issue remains overcrowding, which is largely created by the number of awaiting-trial prisoners. Another issue is antiretrovirals, which are supposed to be provided to infected inmates. In addition, the department is urged to resolve the squabbles between itself and its staff.

Lastly, on Defence, the IFP will support this year’s budget. However, we would like the Minister to share with us the reason for the participation of the SA National Defence Force in other countries on peacekeeping duties. Notwithstanding the SADC policy that binds us as well, the issue is that when SA went through the same problems, we trained our own national peacekeeping force, without the assistance of other countries’ defence force. That is wrong; it’s supposed to be ``forces’’. Why are we now providing such a force? Can’t these countries train their own peacekeeping forces as we did?

Chairperson, in the very little time that I have remaining, I want to go back to the Deputy Minister. I have heard you mentioning courts that are to be built. However, you fell short on an issue that is a long-standing one. This issue was brought to the attention of the former Minister, Mr Dullah Omar, who has now have left us in this world.

Areas such as Zonkisizwe Magagula Heights, Thokoza, Katlehong, as well as Palmridge, and the coloured areas in the areas and townships have been outgrown. We had a moving unit at Zonkisizwe, which is not serving adequately. Now when are we going to have that done? We know that we also need a regional court, for which there is a great need.

We are actually sending 150 cases to Germiston - regional court cases. Only 40 of those are being dealt with, and 110 are not being dealt with. Please let us also not get a deaf ear but let us also be helped in that area.

Mr A L MOSEKI: Chairperson, hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers, MECs, provincial representatives, ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends, perhaps the first thing that we must do is just assist hon Mzizi to understand that South Africa is not an island. It is part of the continent. It is part of the international community.

We have a responsibility as a country to assist to stabilize the entire world so that we can exist in a very peaceful manner, together with the international community. [Interjections.]

In that context again, I think we must say - and I think hon Mzizi will agree with us on this one - that today is actually better than yesterday, and I think hon Mzizi will agree with all of us that tomorrow will be even better than today.

As a community, as a nation, we need to have hope in the future. That should be done in the context of the achievements that we have achieved as a country. This year, as South Africa, we are celebrating the 10 years of our adoption of the Constitution, which is internationally acclaimed as one of best, if not one of the most progressive, constitutions that the world has ever seen.

As representatives of the people of South Africa, a nonracial society, we have reason to celebrate these achievements and advances which we have made as a country in giving effect to constitutional supremacy and the rule of law.

These are important achievements that Mr Mzizi must actually understand. If we do not play a role in the international peacekeeping missions, we will not, as a nation, be peaceful, because the conflicts that might exist in other countries might spill over to us. Therefore, for us to exist in a very peaceful way, we have got to ensure that we do play that role that Mr Mzizi is questioning on the international front.

The Constitution that we are talking about has given us human dignity as a nation, equality, human rights, nonracialism, and values which are expressed in this progressive Constitution that we are talking about.

These are the constitutional principles and values which derive its content from the aspirations and desires of our masses, people who never felt comfortable living or working under the racist, discriminative, degrading and brutal system of apartheid oppression.

In 1955, the People’s Assembly was convened in Kliptown, to lay down the very fundamental values and principles which define us all as human beings worthy of dignity and respect. These historical epochs, which saw convergence of the masses of our people in Kliptown, was also characterised by the use of the army of our country as an instrument for protecting the apartheid state, and minority white interest on South African soil.

Beyond our borders, the defence that we are talking about destabilised our neighbours. Beyond our borders, the defence that we are talking about murdered our own comrades. Beyond our borders, the defence that we are talking about was protecting the apartheid state, and destabilised the communities that we seek to work with today.

The Freedom Charter states that the people of South Africa shall live in peace and friendship with the communities of the world. We have struggled and we will continue to ensure that that objective is continued. As a nation, we will continue to ensure that the Defence Force that we have in this country is a helper of our communities; is a helper of the international community, and that the Defence Force that we are talking about defends the democratic achievement that we have reached as a country.

In conclusion, let me quickly say that some time last year, we visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, as part of the committee that wanted to see the contribution that is made by our soldiers. We are proud to say that the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo said to us that South Africa is furthering their transition.

South Africa is making an immense contribution to ensuring that the DRC is transformed. We saw with our own eyes that the people, even ordinary members and citizens of that country, give our soldiers the respect that they deserved. We are proud of our soldiers. They are the true ambassadors of our country.

It is against that background again, hon Mzizi, that we should understand that with these international missions that we are taking part in, we are actually assisting to stabilise the whole continent in the interests of the international community. With those few words, we want to say as the ANC that we support this Budget Vote, and we hope that it will help the department to further increase the role that we are playing to bring peace at home and on the international front. [Applause.]

Ms J MOFOKENG (Gauteng): Chairperson, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, MECs, hon members, comrades and friends, I would like to acknowledge the presence of Sonia Molaotsi, a learner from Gauteng, who is a guest of the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security during this Child Protection Week. [Applause.]

I will talk about the safety strategy in Gauteng, the smart province. We intend to contribute to the target of reducing crime levels in South Africa by between 7% and 10% per annum, and to this end, we are in the process of developing a Gauteng provincial safety strategy.

The strategy intends promoting an integrated framework for reducing crime through aligning our province’s skills and resources towards this common objective. Importantly, the strategy seeks to contribute to our guiding vision of building Gauteng as a globally competitive city region.

This vision, which is in line with the National Spatial Development Perspective, recognises Gauteng as an economic hub, with a high degree of interconnectedness between its various regions and neighbouring provinces. As part of the objectives of reducing poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment, we have recognised that we need to improve intergovernmental collaboration, and integration on issues such as safety and security.

The Gauteng safety strategy does not intend to leave crime reduction to the police alone. It therefore includes social crime prevention as a fundamental pillar of its integrated approach. We hope therefore to integrate the efforts of government departments at both provincial and local sphere, so that we can serve the community, and this can serve the effective socioeconomic and environmental factors that contribute to crime in the province.

A further component of the strategy is enhancing the capacity of the department of community safety to play a more meaningful role in assisting the police to improve service delivery. As part of this effort, we have already started a process to revive and give guidance to community policing forums throughout the province to better engage with the police at community level.

On the issue of police restructuring, while the aforementioned is being addressed, the police play a crucial role in combating and investigating crime and, therefore, we welcome any initiative to improve service delivery at the station level, where it matters most. We are looking forward to the benefits that the decentralisation of police decision-making skills and resources will promote.

We intend to utilise our monitoring capacity to assist in the overseeing and the implementation of the restructuring process towards the realisation of better police service delivery at station level.

On the question of detectives and investigations, we particularly welcome the plans in place to increase the numbers of skilled detectives, ensuring that those who commit crime, and in so doing undermine the rights of our people, know that they will face justice, and that can make a significant contribution in our efforts to reduce crime. As a crucial police service, improved investigations will go a long way to improving ordinary people’s perceptions of the police.

On the issue of security guard strikes, Gauteng has been the worst hit by the violence that has accompanied the ongoing strike by employees in the safety industry.

We support the firm stance that the Minister and the police have taken in this regard. We believe that, in a democratic society, the right of peaceful protest, including protest action by workers in pursuit of their interests, is constitutionally protected, and must be respected by the police. We want to reiterate that the law will be firmly and resolutely enforced to protect life and property.

We have also observed that the police have made several arrests recently in relation to murders. This is a welcome development, and we hope that these arrests will serve to deter any further incidents, which are entirely unnecessary. Nevertheless, we recognise the plight of the security guards who have not resorted to violence, and we hope that a resolution to this unfortunate situation is found soon.

Regarding firearms, we again enforce the Firearms Control Act of 2000, which seeks to rid our society of illegal firearms and regulate legal ones. The contribution of firearms to violent crimes, including domestic violence, is well documented.

There can be no doubt that it is necessary to regulate gun ownership in this country. Fortunately, the efforts of the police in the province are bearing fruits overall, as fewer firearms are being found during routine search and seizure operations, as opposed to what was the case in previous years.

Hon Minister of Correctional Services, we appreciate the interventions, especially in relation to the woman who appeared on Special Assignment. She had shown that she posed no danger to the community and showed repentance for what she did.

This proves that the ANC government is a caring government, and that the ANC prioritises family units and family cohesion. This week, we celebrate Child Protection Week, with the theme ``Caring Communities Protect Children’’. Under that theme, the department of community safety will be prioritising the protection of children through the social safety programme Tiisa Thuto in Gauteng.

This year, we also celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Women’s March programme. That will strengthen the Domestic Violence Act to be properly implemented and protect women in our communities. Thank you. [Applause.]

Mnr J W LE ROUX: Agb Voorsitter, Ministers, Adjunkministers, LUR’e en kollegas, ek wil net ten aanvang graag ook vir regter Fagan baie hartlik bedank vir die wonderlike diens wat hy aan die departement gelewer het en ons wens regter Erasmus alles van die beste toe met sy nuwe aanstelling.

Met die vlaag van geweldsmisdaad wat nou oor ons land spoel, is dit noodsaaklik dat die publiek vertroue in ons regstelsel moet behou, en spesifiek ook wat betref Korrektiewe Dienste. Wanneer daar dus gevaarlike misdadigers ontsnap of om een of ander rede te vroeë ontslag kry, skend ons hierdie nodige vertroue.

Daar het ’n persepsie ontstaan dat misdadigers vrygelaat word net omdat ons tronke tot barstens toe vol is. Hoe geloofwaardig ons nuwe visie ook al is, die primêre taak van gevangenisdienste bly om wetsgehoorsame burgers te beskerm en om te sorg dat misdadigers hulle straf uitdien.

Die groei in die begroting van R7,5 miljard in 2002 tot R12,5 miljard in 2008 is indrukwekkend, maar die uitdagings in Korrektiewe Dienste is geweldig groot. Ons nuwe visie van rehabilitasie is in beginsel heeltemal korrek, maar in die praktyk is ons goeie voornemens tans onuitvoerbaar. Ek sal graag wil stilstaan net by een of twee van die grootste knelpunte.

Dit is algemene kennis dat ons tronke so vol is dat rehabilitasiewerk op die skaal wat nodig is onmoontlik blyk te wees. Ons selle is so vol dat in baie gevalle drie gevangenes in een bed slaap. Die feit is dat daar net nie genoeg ruimte is om rehabilitasie te laat slaag nie. Om rehabilitasiewerk effektief te doen, het ons baie meer spesiale fasiliteite nodig soos werkswinkels, lesingsale en genoegsame ontspanningsareas. Ons beskik tans nie eers oor genoeg spasie om net die gevangenes te huisves nie.

Wat oorvol tronke betref, is die bou van nuwe fasiliteite natuurlik nie die enigste oplossing nie, maar moet dit sekerlik as ’n baie hoë prioriteit beskou word. Dit is daarom onverklaarbaar dat die bou van vier nuwe eenhede nog steeds nie plaasgevind het nie. Die beplanning en befondsing is reeds in 2002 afgehandel. Tot op hede is nog nie een steen gelê nie. Die feit dat meer as R80 miljoen reeds aan hierdie projek gespandeer is en nog niks gebeur het nie, is ’n klad op die naam van die departement.

Wat nog meer kommer wek, is dat die departement skynbaar nog nie besluit het wat die beste van verskeie opsies is nie. Die keuses is óf om self fasiliteite te bou en te bedryf óf om die privaatsektor fasiliteite te laat bou en dan hier ’n ooreenkoms aan te gaan óf om totaal te privatiseer. Elkeen van hierdie opsies het ’n belangrike impak op die begroting, aangesien dit sal bepaal hoe en wanneer fondse benodig word. Besluite van hierdie aard word daagliks in die privaatsektor geneem en as die departement nie oor die kundigheid beskik om hierdie besluite te neem nie, moet van beskikbare spesialiste gebruik gemaak word.

Om ons visie van rehabilitasie te laat slaag het ons kundige personeel nodig op al die vlakke – dit sluit in van bewaarders tot spesiaal opgeleide personeel, sielkundiges en dokters. Ons huidige personeelposisie is as volg: Ons vakante poste is tans 2 407 en ons verloor jaarliks 1 800 persone wat die diens verlaat. Daar is nou 3 057 nuwe poste geskep wat ook gevul moet word. Dis duidelik dat net om ons personeelplasings reg te kry reeds ’n enorme taak is en dit was absoluut die regte besluit van die departement om van konsultante in dié verband gebruik te maak. Korrektiewe Dienste se sukses, al dan nie, sal uiteindelik bepaal word deur die kwaliteit van ons personeel. Dankie. [Applous.] (Translation of Afrikaans speech follows.)

[Mr J W LE ROUX: Hon Chairperson, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, MECs and colleagues, firstly I just want to express my heartiest gratitude to Judge Fagan for the wonderful service rendered by him to the department, and we wish Judge Erasmus all the best with his new appointment. Bearing in mind the present wave of violent crime engulfing our country, it is essential that the public retain trust in our legal system, and specifically also regarding correctional services. Therefore, when dangerous criminals escape or are released for some or other reason, we violate this necessary trust.

A perception has developed that criminals are released simply because our prisons are full to overflowing. However credible our new vision may be, the primary task of prison services is still to protect law-abiding citizens and to ensure that criminals serve their sentences.

The increase in the budget from R7,5 billion in 2002 to R12,5 billion in 2008 is impressive, but the challenges in Correctional Services are enormous. Our new vision of rehabilitation is quite correct in principle, but in practice our good intentions are at present impracticable. I would like to dwell on only one or two of the biggest problems.

It is general knowledge that our prisons are so overcrowded that rehabilitation work on the necessary scale has proved to be impossible. Our cells are so overcrowded that, in many cases, three prisoners sleep in one bed. The fact is that there simply is not enough space for rehabilitation to succeed. To do rehabilitation work effectively, we need many more special facilities such as workshops, lecture halls and adequate recreational areas. At present we do not even have enough space in which to accommodate the prisoners.

As far as overcrowded prisons are concerned, the building of new facilities is of course not the only solution, but it should certainly be regarded as a high priority. It is therefore inexplicable that the building of four new units has still not taken place. The planning and financing had already been concluded in 2002. To date not a single brick has been laid. The fact that more than R80 million has already been spent on this project and that nothing has happened yet is a blot on the name of the department.

What is more alarming is the fact that the department has apparently not yet decided what is the best of various options. The choices are either to build and operate facilities itself or to let the private sector build facilities and then conclude an agreement here or to privatise totally. Each one of these options has an important impact on the budget, as it will determine how and when funds are needed. Decisions of this nature are made daily in the private sector and if the department does not have the expertise to make these decisions, the available specialists will have to be used.

In order that our vision of rehabilitation succeed, we need skilled staff on all the levels – that includes from warders to specially trained staff, psychologists and doctors. Our present staff position is as follows: We now have 2 407 vacant posts and we are losing 1 800 people annually who leave the service. A total of 3 057 new posts have now been created which also have to be filled. It is clear that just getting our staff placements right is an enormous task and it was absolutely the right decision by the department to make use of consultants in this regard. The success or failure of correctional services will ultimately be determined by the quality of our staff. Thank you. [Applause.]]

Mr B H CELE (KwaZulu-Natal): Chairperson, Ministers, my colleagues, friends and comrades, I don’t know why Gauteng … ihlale isithatha kancane njalo nje. [… always undermines us.] It’s Mary Hlangu who has accompanied us from KwaZulu-Natal to this place. [Interjections.] I don’t know why they took her away before she could show her face. Perhaps they are preparing her for when she goes home. She comes from UMthwalume High School, where I was also shaped. She is a leading soloist in the choir that represented KwaZulu-Natal in Gauteng - and all schools were beaten by that school in KwaZulu-Natal. They will sing two songs on behalf of KwaZulu-Natal and, surely, they will win that national competition. [Applause.]

Regarding the “tsunami” question that was raised here, two weeks back I was in London where there was a conference about investment in South Africa. Everybody was talking about this “tsunami” and now I realise where they got it. But, as they were busy talking about this problem of crime in South Africa, the news in the UK was dominated by a woman who had been killed in a hijacking. She died, along with her two kids, who were killed during the hijacking. I spent only two days there.

The news was also dominated by a female police officer who had been stabbed and killed. I asked the Londoners: “Why so much about this crime so many kilometres away and you do not speak about this one?” One major problem was the theft of dogs. They steal about 1 000 dogs a week. [Laughter.] Whether they are opening the space to create more crime, nobody knows, but everybody acknowledges that in the past three years, crime had gone up by 11% up in that city. So, it’s fine here when people speak about a crime tsunami but they should not really begin to tell other people things that do not exist, as if they are isolated and in South Africa alone. We are part of the global world.

I fully agree and concur that today is better than yesterday and that, surely, tomorrow will be even better. We are going forward. We are indeed dealing with the crime that is confronting South Africans rather than sections of South Africans, because whoever gave these statistics before never gave statistics about what was happening to me in Lamontville. All statistics were about UMhlanga and Durban North, not about Lamontville, where I grew up under conditions of severe crime.

Kwakugwazwana laphaya mfowethu, kwakungadlalwa. [We were stabbing each other there, my brother, we were not playing.]

An HON MEMBER: Nawe wasinda. [You also survived.]

Mr B H CELE: Yebo, ngasinda. [Yes, I survived.]

But the crux of the matter is that that has been happening in half of South Africa. This dispensation, at least, deals with South Africans, not “some South Africans”. We need to acknowledge that, at least as we are seated here, we are South Africans and not “some South Africans”.

Thanks for the presentation by the cluster. As a person who works with the police almost every day, sometimes I sympathise with them, especially when it comes to correctional services and the justice department. You know, we arrest the criminals and we take them to magistrates. They are given bail and the people ask the police: “Why are you bringing them back?” The police say then: “It’s not us”: They then go to prison and come back. People then ask the police: “Why are they coming back?”

Maybe it is time that the cluster as a whole is exposed to the communities. It should not be just one arm - the police. The justice system must be in a position to gain the experience and explain: “It is us who give people bail, not the police”. The police get lambasted after they have done their work and somebody else has taken over. Because people do not see prosecutors and the magistrates, they lambast the police. So, this cluster must work out some system that will enable all of us to go back to the communities to account and tell them that it is not the police that issue bail, but the justice system. So it will be quite important to do that.

The creation of structures that, as a whole, will deal with communities must be encouraged rather than to have only the police making contact with the communities. Maybe we need to create what we call community safety forums, where all these structures can go back to account. I think we need to account. I think we need to encourage that so that we are all exposed to working directly with communities. It cannot work if it’s only the structures as they are at the present moment.

I think the question of community participation needs to be emphasised in dealing with crime in those areas where we come from and all other communities. It is on that score that in KwaZulu-Natal we have come up with a concept of communities in dialogue. We say communities must talk about these things and they must engage. They must try to ease the tension before there is eruption or physical eruption regarding those particular things. They must know and apply all preventative measures regarding any form of eruption of crime and violence. I think it will be important to encourage that and to say to communities: “You are responsible, like any other person, for your safety and the safety of our communities”. It is important to make sure that we fight crime together. Not only should these departments be isolated but the cluster as a whole needs to be involved.

One area where we find very disturbing trends in crime is in schools. There is serious crime that is taking place in schools. If you want a new market for drugs, go to schools. This is where the guns are used, okapis and every other thing. Rape and all those other things happen in schools. So this cluster will have to bring education on board so that we work together in dealing with crime and make those institutions of learning safe for our kids.

We are pretty happy in KwaZulu-Natal but there are some few individuals who think that they can reverse the clock and the winds of change. We are one area where several councillors have been killed after the elections on 1 March. But, without fail, I can assure you that all the people who killed those councillors have been arrested. All of them have been put in prison. [Applause.] That is thanks to the police, but we still need to work harder to prevent those kinds of incidents taking place.

There are very senior people who have been arrested for some of these murders. Some are Speakers of municipalities and some are mayors of municipalities. They have been arrested for the murder of their fellow councillors and other people. So it is thanks to the police. One is making a clarion call to the politicians to say: Don’t try to reverse the clock or the winds of change because we make a lot of noise where it hurts most. Where we are supposed to say that these things should not happen, we keep quiet. We must not be found wanting when it comes to that.

I was very must pleased to hear Minister Nqakula talking about the ICD and other structures that will facilitate the work of the police. I am one of those people who thinks we still have to help our police service so that they cross this Rubicon and understand the move from being the force to the service. Its lifespan might have been too short to begin to change that and we need a lot of assistance regarding that aspect.

One more point one would like to make before one sits down is on the question of the vehicles that the Minister talked about that are sent to police stations. Go to any supermarket and any shopping mall, and you will some of those vehicles there. At any given time, you will find a police van parked at a supermarket while the driver is doing some shopping. If you call the police station where that van is supposed to be, they don’t even say that there are no vans but they would just tell you that the government does not provide. They say that the van is being used for shopping … igcwele inqwaba yoplastiki. [… and is loaded full of grocery bags.]

I can take you to any shopping mall in KwaZulu-Natal now and you will find at least one vehicle being used for shopping there. It will take very serious monitoring to ensure that these resources are used for what they are supposed to be used for. Thank you very much, Chairperson. [Applause.]

Ms R SEMENYA (Limpopo): Chairperson, Ministers, hon Minister of Safety and Security, Deputy Ministers, the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security, chairpersons of portfolio committees and my MEC colleagues, let me start by acknowledging the guest of the Deputy Minister from Limpopo, Albertina Choeu from Chika High School. [Applause.] Albertina is in Standard 10, which is Grade 12 in the new dispensation. This is the school that has been producing 100% results and I hope that Albertina will be one of the children that will produce A’s and B’s because this is the tradition of the school from the deep rural villages of Limpopo in Ga-Mabitsela.

I would like to welcome and commend the focused and well-articulated Budget Votes from the cluster and in particular that of the Ministry of Safety and Security. I would also like to utilise this opportunity to interact on safety and security issues at this level. I must mention that this is my last speech as an MEC for Safety and Security because I have been redeployed to Public Works. [Applause.] When the Premier announced this reshuffling, I was not sure whether I was supposed to come and speak on behalf of the province. So, you can imagine the confusion that I was swimming in. [Laughter.] As Limpopo we will continue to work in earnest to ensure that our people continue to live in peace and tranquillity. Hence, crime levels in our province continue to show the lowest trends consistently. This is due to the sterling work that our SAPS in the province puts into challenges it faces. It is also due to our unwavering commitment as the secretariat in monitoring and evaluating services of the SAPS as per our constitutional mandate.

I would like to utilise this opportunity to reflect on a number of challenges we continue to face as we operate in the provinces - one of its community policing forums which continue to be the drivers of community policing and crime prevention. However, their location and function as per SAPS Act of 1995, we believe that as the Minister is going to table the Act for amendment, we hope that the clause will be looked at again so that they position them in such a way that they will be able to do their work on the ground.

As I have indicated, we as Limpopo continue to register the lowest crime rate in the country. We should actually mention that as a province we still have challenges of the ritual killings, which remain a problem in our province. Nonetheless, the police officers and we have established a task team that is working with our people to resolve these problems. I should indicate that some of the criminals might be arrested as we speak.

We are still experiencing a pocket of racism inside and outside the SAPS in the provinces, which remains a challenge. We think that as a country, through our Ministry, we are working tirelessly to make sure that the SA Police Service is being transformed. We believe that transformation as a tool to make sure that our people are being treated equally by our legislation is not an event that can be done within a day or two - it is a process. We believe that through the interaction with and commitments by our SAPS leaders, we would actually overcome that.

We view the process of restructuring the SAPS and the service delivery processes as a positive development towards ensuring that our people receive the best services where they live. We would like to urge that this process should include the elimination of cross-boundary police stations, as they are sources of dissatisfaction and exclusion. Our people still walk long distances or are forced to pay transportation fees to get to police stations that are just a distance away because of restriction issues.

We again welcome the strengthening of the Secretariat and the Provincial Secretariat through our line structures. Wide and designated funding on crime prevention projects can go a long way in complementing the work done by our SAPS.

In line with our National Crime Prevention Strategy and the Growth and Development Strategy of our province, we have developed our Provincial Crime Prevention Strategy, which was launched on Human Rights Day. The strategy provides strategic impetus to programmes that the provincial government will run in preventing crime. As a result, we have intensified Community Outreach Programmes as a quest to provide our people with platforms to make inputs in improving service delivery. This includes the establishment of a call centre toll free number where our people get the opportunity to complain or compliment delivery by the police service.

We view our municipality as one of the structures that can play a very critical role in making sure that our people live in secure and safer environments. Hence, as a province we have organised several workshops in training our councillors and people responsible for the Integrated Development Plan, IDP, to come up with safety plans that will be included in the IDP so that they are budgeted for. As municipalities are reviewing their IDPs, they are actually busy integrating the safety plans into their IDPs. For us this is an achievement that will make us go a long way.

Hon Minister, we are all aware that we are bordering on three countries - Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana. We still have challenges with regard to which the SAPS, with our support, are doing very well, for example making sure that problems that occur in our province - particularly farm killings

• are being addressed. We have actually reviewed our rural … [Time expired.] [Applause.]

Mr N D HENDRICKSE: Chairperson, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members, in relation to Correctional Services, far too many juveniles are still in prison for petty offences. A concerted effort must be made to get children out of jails and into reform schools, as jails serve only as universities of crime. If we are to make an impact on crime levels we must focus on interventions among the youth, who are largely unemployed.

We’ve heard people talking about breaking the cycle of crime. I just want to differ with Mr Worth there on his methodology. With regard to the reform schools, especially the ones up here – I know we’ve closed down reform schools across the country, but we must get them back – I want to suggest that children leaving them should not be sent back home. We need to set up special safe houses for them and find employment for them, because we need to break the cycle of crime just there. We need to look at the safety of prison inmates. The episodes of fires causing death in Pollsmoor are a concern. It has happened too often. Why are there no smoke detectors, why is there no adequate CCTV monitoring and why are there no normal patrols at night? The issue of HIV in prisons continues to raise its ugly head. As awaiting-trial prisoners, petty offenders are often put in the same cells as hard-core criminals. They are raped and contract HIV, and another innocent life is wasted. The general handling of HIV in prisons and the supply of antiretrovirals is also cause for concern. More prisons need to be built and we’re happy to hear it’s on the cards. Petty offenders should be held in separate facilities from awaiting-trial prisoners. Prisoners need to work. We need to get prisoners working to give them back their self- respect. We can even start co-ops in the prisons. Much has been done to improve administration of justice and the appointment of court managers and other legal assistants aided in this process.

However, the daily reality is that the poor still cannot access the system, so how can there be fair justice for them? I’m happy to hear from the Deputy Minister that the Small Claims Court has now been beefed up and that should serve us there. We sincerely hope that the NPA will not be integrated into the police service, given issues of organisational culture, professional ethos, etc.

The NPA has done and continues to do sterling work in combating, investigating and prosecuting financial crime, fraud, etc, which has become systemic in government, and according to the outgoing Auditor-General, is rampant, not only in government, but also in the corporate sector.

The question of backlogs in some courts remains a problem that must be addressed. This affects the rights of accused to a fair trial and has hidden costs for all concerned. Trials continue to be postponed for no good reason. You can go to any court and look at the timetable: “Postponed, postponed, postponed,” and they waste everybody’s time and money. The UIF supports the Budget Vote. [Time expired.] Ms M B MADIKANE (Northern Cape): Chairperson, firstly, I would like to acknowledge the presence in the House of three young ladies. One of them is Grace Kokwe from the Banksdrif Secondary School in Magogong near Hartswater in the Northern Cape. [Applause.] Secondly, from the Free State, we have Mamelo Makgadi from Relebohile Sibulele Commercial School in Smithfield. [Applause.] The third, Esther Masiga, is from the N R Mandela Commercial School in Lehurutshe in the North West. [Applause.]

Chairperson, Minister, Deputy Ministers, MECs, hon Members of Parliament and distinguished guests, I am honoured today to be participating in this budget debate. These ladies that you have just recognised are part of a programme led by Deputy Minister Shabangu. It’s in line with the spirit of the “Take a Girl-child to Work” initiative as well as the spirit of the age of hope that seeks to confirm that we are a caring government that does all in its power to protect the vulnerable as well as to expose them to opportunities and possibilities that must keep alive and ultimately realise that hope, not only for them, but also for generations to come.

In my summary of the provincial overview I’d just like to mention that in the province we are doing regular oversight visits to police stations to monitor and oversee police performance and conduct as well as to foster a culture of police accountability, whilst simultaneously promoting community- police relations. Most of our activities and interventions are focused on the 21 crime weight stations as well as strategic specialised units and components within the provincial and area levels. Our understanding and reasoning is that we will be most successful in improving safety and security levels in the province if we succeed in bringing crime down in those areas as they collectively contribute between 45% and 50% of the reported crime in the province.

One of the biggest challenges that affects service delivery in the province at present is the fact that the boundaries of the SAPS are not aligned to the municipal or district boundaries, and we see the restructuring process as giving us an opportunity to correct this, because sometimes the fact that these boundaries are not aligned hampers service delivery.

Law enforcement agencies in the main, which constitute the Police, are doing a very good job in the province in terms of fighting crime. Categories of crime that have been showing a downward trend include murder, assault, indecent assault as well as crimes against children. On the other hand, rape, in particular, as well as all forms of robbery remains a serious challenge.

In line with this, in our efforts we have come up with effective measures and interventions, some of which include us having hosted, in the past year, important consultative fora in the form of the Provincial Anti- corruption Consultative Summit, the Provincial Anti-substance Abuse Indaba, the Provincial Anti-rape Indaba as well as the Provincial Moral Regeneration Summit.

It’s important for me to note that the most important task of all these ventures is to make sure that the resolutions emanating from these fora are actually implemented so they can become effective and bring fruitful results. The police in the province continue to intensify their crime combating operations with a specific focus on identifying priority crimes related to alcohol and drugs, and firearms and other dangerous weapons.

Communities remain one of the critical partners in fighting crime and creating a safe and secure environment. It is therefore important that communities are actively involved in policing issues. In line with this we have actually done, in conjunction with the national department, an audit of all the CPFs in the province, and we found that 15% of them are in fact nonfunctional, even though all of them are actually in existence.

We have also succeeded in mobilising a significant number of volunteers under the social sector Expanded Public Works Programme, who are all involved in crime prevention and community safety activities in the province. These include Safety Volunteers, Women against Crime, Youth against Crime, Eye on the Child, and so forth. These structures function as operational substructures of the community policing forums, and they implement different projects on the ground in collaboration with the other departments in the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster. We have to mention that the provincial department of safety and liaison is also funding some of them.

We have also embarked on capacity-building workshops for our CPFs so that they can do their duties. We’d also like to welcome as a province the appointment of the first ever women provincial commissioner and we appreciate that a lot. [Applause.] We will also continue to work with her in a very productive and fruitful way, as the crime levels in the province have already shown during the past year.

This is evident in the fact that according to the National Performance Charter, the Northern Cape province is doing exceptionally well and is holding the first position in relation to detective services and second position in relation to the overall efficiency, as well as crime prevention. We have to mention this at this particular stage because we still hold that position, lest we lose it. We are confident that it will not happen very soon.

We are also eagerly awaiting the filling of the post of the deputy provincial commissioner for policing in the Northern Cape. We are fully supportive of the restructuring process that is now unfolding within the SA Police Service, as we understand that it is geared at strengthening the local structures, thus bringing our service delivery closer to the people.

We also do appreciate the strengthening in terms of human resource capacity in the province. However, it needs to be mentioned that as a province we are facing challenges, because the demographics that we have in the province do not always speak to the national demographics and this poses a serious challenge when we recruit, as well as attract and retain police officers to achieve equity targets in relationship to African representation. Can you believe it: as a province, we are the hardest hit in terms of the legacy of apartheid relations, because there are communities where you won’t find anybody who is speaking an African language, even though when they trace their roots, they can say that they were, at some stage, Tswana-speaking or Xhosa-speaking. It is really a challenge for us.

The other challenge is the challenge of the drivers’ licences, particularly as our province has many areas that are really poverty stricken. We do hope that we will get some reprieve as far as that is concerned.

As far as infrastructure is concerned, we are pleased that at last the Galeshewe community safety centre was opened by the Minister and the Minister of Public Works last year, as well as the Steinkopf and Aggeneys police stations. We are awaiting the completion of the Kuruman community safety centre sometime later this year, as well as the building of one for Augrabies/Kakamas.

As far as police conduct is concerned, the department is responsible for monitoring police conduct, and we noted that most of the complaints involved alleged dereliction of duty by police on the basis of racial bias or inefficiency followed by … [Time expired.]

Ms D PULE (Mpumalanga): Chairperson, hon Ministers, Deputy Ministers, in particular my Minister, the Minister for Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula, and the Deputy Minister, Susan Shabangu.

Deputy Minister, allow me to express my appreciation for the initiatives that you have taken up. It has given young women from all the other provinces an opportunity to come and sit in Parliament and observe. However, one young woman who comes from Mpumalanga went a step beyond that, beyond coming and sitting here and observing matters, because she assisted the Deputy Minister to write a speech yesterday. [Applause.] It can only be a young woman from Mpumalanga taking strength from all the other women of Mpumalanga.

Unfortunately, Deputy Minister, I am not sure if Siphiwe is still here. Her name is Siphiwe Skhosana. Her flight was a bit earlier today. [Interjections.] Yes, I know. She comes from Muroleg High School, in Wonderfontein, one of the rural areas.

In fact, she comes from a farm area, a farm area we visited late last year. We went there and met all the children in that area, and listened to them about how they want us to assist them by protecting them on a daily basis. Thank you so much for that, Deputy Minister and Minister.

I want to say that in Mpumalanga hard work, dedication and innovation are surely becoming evident. The good work of our men and women in blue, led by the Ministry for Safety and Security, is very evident in our province. Conditions of peace, I can agree on that now, do prevail. The fear of crime is diminishing from our national side.

The pessimists continue to write about us in the papers. As someone from Mpumalanga, I would like to say that there are a number of newspapers that have been writing very negatively about us as a province, especially regarding the restructuring process, and also about our having moved the provincial office of the SAPS from Middleburg to Nelspruit, which is in line with the agreement of the provincial government that all provincial offices were supposed to move, after 1996, to Nelspruit. Therefore, I want to clear this up, so that when you read the so-called Beeld articles and others, you understand what is happening.

I want to say, as the President said at the opening of Parliament early this year, that the trees are starting to clap in Mpumalanga, and the mountains are singing for us because this department is trying its best through the support that we have from the national of Department of Safety and Security in dealing with crime.

In Mpumalanga, communities are working side-by-side with the police service, strengthening our belief in fighting crime through community participation.

The people also express their appreciation on a daily basis. Allow me to quote from one of the many letters I receive in my office on a daily basis, expressing their appreciation of the good work that police are doing, led by the Ministry of Safety and Security. Ms K Motswenyane of Nelspruit writes, and I quote:

This letter serves to convey my sincere and deepest appreciation to the members of the SAPS who came to my rescue and saved my life when I endured the ordeal of being hijacked, assaulted and kidnapped in Nelspruit on 8 to 9 January 2006. I salute the swiftness with which the police responded when my kidnapper drove me from Nelspruit to Piet Retief Dam.

I am even more proud that our fellow public servants put their lives at risk to save others. These are the same people that, in my view, give us daily victories as the general public, but which have mostly gone uncelebrated. Amid the fog of confusion and fear I experienced, especially while standing in the shadow of death, I was however able to note the sense of emergency, professionalism, efficiency, commitment, pride, cohesion, bravery and empathy displayed by displayed by policemen and women. [Applause.]

Our people are able to express their appreciation because the policy direction that the Ministry has taken and the manner in which police discharge their duties are commendable. I must say that violent crimes are tackled with vigour in our province. We have had a number of heists in December. Proudly, we can say it now takes us very few days, from 3 to 21 days to solve a violent crime, be it a murder or robbery, as we have done so previously and especially during the robberies and heists in December.

I want to talk about the manner in which our detectives dealt with the murder of two young brothers, the Magagula brothers of KwaNyamazane, when they were killed when they went to fetch their mother from the bus stop in the evening. There is the Mutebu family in Middleburg. The whole family was wiped out. The two young kids, a six- and eight-year-old, were raped before they were killed.

Our police, our men and women in blue, swiftly attended to that issue, and it only took them, in both cases, three days after these crimes were committed before the suspects were arrested.

We have taken steps to ensure that communities work better with the police and we are on course in building a real people-centred police service that is a helper and protector of our people in Mpumalanga.

As a result, I must say that we get feedback on a daily basis. As a result, on the issue of vehicles, Minister, you can relax. In Mpumalanga, we have created a situation where every community member has the responsibility to report if a police vehicle is stopping at a tavern or at a shop. So, I personally get a number of calls from community members if a car is parked at a shop or at a tavern or anywhere else.

We wish to express our appreciation for the police stations that are being built in Hazyview and Pienaar, in KwaNyamazane, and I am sure you would remember that when we went there together with you, the buildings were going ahead. They are about to be completed in early 2007.

However, we want to say that we still have a dire need for new police stations, especially in the Bushbuckridge area, where that part has now been moved from Limpopo to Mpumalanga. That area has only four police stations, and it is very vast and, therefore, we request that the Ministry should look into it.

We believe that the restructuring of the Police Service will indeed offer much relief to the rural areas. As I said earlier on, there have been a number of articles that were going out that were negative, especially from business and other people.

However, I want to say that our people have appreciated it and they welcome it. They say, especially because Mpumalanga is a rural area, that if we take all the necessary human resources that we have at area offices into police stations where they are needed most, then we are doing the right thing.

We want to say that we appreciate the initiative and that you have the support of Mpumalanga people. They are very happy. The letters and the articles they have written in response are saying that they appreciate it a lot. They say to us they know that, in future, they will sleep better knowing that they are protected nearer to police station level.

Therefore, because this movement, the ANC, has always tried to create a just society, as promised, we want to say that in Mpumalanga we are doing our best to make sure that every member of the community is protected. Therefore we want to say again that our society cannot be a just society if farmers treat their workers with contempt, and those who have no respect for human life murder male farmers for their cellphones or even rape women.

We have moved a mile in this regard as a province, and we now have a rural safety framework, which is based on development, transformation and human rights. We are responding to the President’s call and your call, Minister, to create security structures that are acceptable to rural communities.

I must say that criminal justice system in our province is working very well. There is improvement in that we are working with the Department of Justice and the Department of Correctional Services. Recently, we have agreed … [Time expired.] [Applause.]

Mr S SHICEKA: Chairperson, I spoke to my colleagues, the ANC members, who said that I must take some of their time because they didn’t use all of it. [Interjections.] It’s eight minutes. Therefore I am saying your clock must reflect that.

Ministers, Deputy Ministers, MECs present, special delegates from various provinces, colleagues and officials from various departments, my input today will be based on the political discourse regarding the transformation of the judiciary. I will present up to date statistics on the composition of the judiciary. You will decide for yourselves how far have we gone.

Presently, there are 1 833 magistrates at different ranks. Of those, 1 288 are males, while only 545 are women. Of those, 893 are white, of which 644 are males and 249 are white women. A total of 940 magistrates are black, which amounts to almost half of the total of 1 833; of those 644 are males and 296 are women. In terms of judges, there are 218 in total. Men constitute 184 of the total, whilst women make up only 34 out of 218. A total of 115 are whites and 102 are blacks.

Now that begins to tell you what is happening. In terms of statistics, when we look at the population according to the census that was conducted on 10 October 2001, South Africa had a population of 44 819 778 people. Of those, 90,4% classified themselves as blacks and only 9,6% classified themselves as whites. What does that story tell in terms of the composition of the judiciary?

It tells you that the decisions that are taken by the minority that have fundamental implications on the majority are taken by people who are not representative. They are people who do not reflect the demographics of our country in terms of gender and sex. It simply says that transformation, in terms of representivity, has not happened in the judiciary in relation to this issue.

During the opening of Parliament, when the judiciary comes and joins us in a procession, there is not a single woman there. There are only males in that delegation.

Then there is the myth of the reactionary forces. These reactionary forces, despite the picture that I have painted, say that whites are not appointed to the judiciary.

Let me give you statistics of only one year, 2005. The Judicial Service Commission appointed 18 people. Of those 18 people, 11 were black and, at the same time, the remainder were white. Three were males and the rest were white women. Therefore, there is no truth in the myth that says - despite the picture that I have painted - that white are not appointed by this government. There is no truth in that and it comes from the other side of the House when people indicate this situation.

Despite this situation, changes are happening, but at a snail’s pace. Now, we say in Zulu, “ngonyawo lonwabu” [at a chamaeleon’s pace], and what is clear is that the pool within which these people are found is very small. That is why the ANC is saying that something has to be done. The question that is faced by the ANC is: Should the ANC fold its arms, sit back and say: ``Let’s leave the situation as it is, whilst people take fundamentally important decisions in resolving disputes between people and property. “In that case: “What should be done?’’

The ANC says that there must be a programme to fast-track training of potential people who must sit on the Bench so that we are able to move forward as a country. I want to quote Chief Justice Langa on what he presented. He said:

Not so long ago in South Africa, justice had a white, unwelcoming face, with black victims at the receiving end of unjust laws administered by courts that were alien to them, and generally hostile to them. The language of those courts was not that of the majority, nor was the culture and social practices of the judicial officers that of a racial majority. The white face of justice was not only overwhelming as part of the then oppressive discriminating system, it also failed to recognise the humanity of the victims of the apartheid system.

This debate was taken forward by Justice Mphathi, who confirmed that, under apartheid, judicial officers were required to apply laws that ensured that the black people were denied respect and dignity. For this reason, in the eyes of those who were subjected to the unjust laws, the courts were merely part of the system of oppression.

Now, I also want to quote Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza on this point. He says:

No judicial system which is in the majority white is going to pretend that it can, with legitimacy, deliver justice to the majority black population. No judicial system that holds sacrosanct values of equality between sexes is going to remain white and black male without having white and black women sufficiently soiling the ranks of judiciary.

Now I want to also quote the Chief justice of Zimbabwe, when he said:

In order to be legitimate, judges should see through their eyes the condition of the ordinary person. When sitting on their high benches, in the splendour of their robes, judges should look out through the window in order to see what is going on outside there, where their judgments have effect.

Now the ANC spoke on this matter in its document entitled Ready to Govern. It said:

The Bench will be transformed in such a way as to ensure that it consists of men and women drawn from all sectors of South African society. This will be done without interfering with its independence, and with a view to ensuring that justice is seen to be done in a nonracial and nonsexist way, and that the wisdom, experience and competent judicial skills of all South Africans are represented.

The President of the country also spoke on this matter. [Time expired.]

The DEPUTY MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Chairperson, may I thank everyone for participating in this debate, particularly on justice issues. I particularly want to assure you that all the issues that have been raised will be looked at seriously. We have senior staff here who have taken down the matters. Most of the issues raised were particular issues concerning which you could easily interact with us, and that we can deal with.

With regard to the bigger issues raised about backlogs and transformation, I think we should set aside a considerable amount of time for a discussion and a debate in which we can go into them in some detail, including also the interaction within the cluster. We have taken all those issues on board and, hopefully, in future we can deal with those matters in a more systematic way. I thank you once again, and I thank you once again for supporting our budget debate. Thank you. [Applause.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr T S Setona): I proceed to call the hon Deputy Minister of Defence, the hon M E George.

Oh, hon Deputy Minister, I’ve just been informed by the Table that your name was printed incorrectly. You were not supposed to be on the speakers’ list. I was waiting for confirmation from the Chief Whip, but that should not disrupt debate. I’ll call you after the Deputy Minister.

The DEPUTY MINISTER OF DEFENCE: Chair, thank you very much. I think it’s good that you put us before Correctional Services and Safety and Security. They can talk about criminals and other things whilst we talk about very, very serious things. [Laughter.] Firstly, I must thank the members of the NCOP for the support they have given to our Budget Vote. We also take cognisance of some of the issues that have been raised.

The issue of transformation, Kgoshi, I can tell you that this is one area that we are moving in very much in all four services, especially those that were lagging behind like the air force, the navy and the health services. We have a plan, which they have been part of formulating, and they have committed themselves. The plan has timeframes.

You would realise, Chief, that transformation was not accepted by everybody; even within our ranks there were people who were still trying by all means to resist transformation. In the navy they sometimes gave the excuse that blacks were afraid of water; they couldn’t go into water. We sent 21 to India and all of them passed, not just passed but passed well. So, we are moving.

We also, of course, have another problem, which we are going to discuss with the air force, SAA and Portnet. We produce them and Portnet steals them, SAA steals them. But we have a plan, because these are also government institutions, in that we agree with them that it looks as if they can’t do training. We know training pilots, divers and all these people costs a lot of money.

What we are going to do is have a deal with them – we train them not only for defence but we also train them because they steal from us. So, we make them good citizens. They don’t have to steal. We train them; we give them. [Laughter.]

So, we are working on transformation. In fact, we even have a plan in that we are trying to introduce these things to the rural people – the opportunities that are there in defence, especially in the navy and the air force, so that rural children can understand that there are opportunities.

They have been achieving As in mathematics and As in science, but we are beginning to modify that as you can produce good pilots who have a B or C in mathematics. So, this gatekeeping of As and Bs we are also looking at very seriously. By this I’m trying to show that we are working on transformation, because we believe that the Defence Force and the Department of Defence must be transformed.

On the question of the Soccer World Cup, unfortunately we do not have good players so they will not be able to play. We are just worried that it doesn’t look like even Safa has players. We don’t even have a coach now, and we don’t know whether we will be playing. But one thing we know we will be doing, in terms of our role, is that we will be assisting the Department of Safety and Security because that is the department that is going to play a major role in terms of preparations and making sure that there is security during the Soccer World Cup.

We will assist them even in terms of transport, especially in the air. So, we will be working more with the Department of Safety and Security than playing a leading role in the Soccer World Cup. I also feel for sorry for them. It doesn’t look like they have players either, so we can’t help beyond that.

As far as the issue of the borders are concerned, our core responsibility is to defend the country against external aggression. Some of these border responsibilities are more those of the police than of the soldiers. So, there we work more with the police than, again, taking a leading role. For instance, we assist police, especially on the borders, with roadblocks. This is only in terms of assisting, because that is the responsibility of the police. The soldiers are not trying to man the roadblocks. They are not even trained to search people. Even when there is something, they are trained to use maximum force, not to kiss and search. [Laughter.]

There is also the issue of tracking illegal immigrants. Even there, our job is more that of giving assistance. Of course, like you said, there might be times when people do wrong things. In situations like that we act. If we find some of our guys doing wrong things during those operations, we act.

The last thing I want to talk about is the issue of why we are helping African countries. As one of the speakers said, we are living in a global village – that’s the number one. Number two is that we are part of Africa. What happens in Africa affects us. I don’t know whether some members know the number of people from the DRC who are in the country at the moment. I’m not talking about only Gauteng – that is in the north - and Limpopo, those provinces that are near the border. All over the country there are a number of people from Africa – I’m just giving the DRC as an example.

So, we have a responsibility to make sure that we work together. I’m not talking about responsibilities that have been mentioned by other people. We want Africa to develop economically and, for South Africa to develop economically, Africa must develop because we are part of Africa. So, we cannot pretend that what is happening in Africa does not affect us.

Baba uMzizi, asiyifuni lendaba yokuthi indaba yakwamakhelwane ayisifuni. [Mr Mzizi, we do not like this thing of people saying it’s a neighbourhood issue; we don’t like it.] That is a bad neighbourhood. We have to make sure that there is stability in Africa. We have projects like Nepad and all those things; they are meant to make sure that Africa develops. It is in the interests of South Africa that there is peace in Africa. In fact, we can see that we are beginning to change the whole situation in Africa, and we cannot be the only players. So, it’s important that we train other African countries to work together to make sure that there is peace in Africa.

An Africa without peace … you see it every day on television: where there is war, what war can do to women, what war can do to children, and what war can do to all sorts of good people – people die. Most of the people die not during the war but after the war. So, it’s important that we make sure that there is peace in Africa, and we must always have the feeling that we are part of Africa. We work together with the whole continent. So, I hope, Mr Mzizi …

This is because sometimes I hear people asking: Why are you worried about Africa? Your business is South African. That is true, but you cannot defend South Africa without defending Africa, because South Africa is an integral part of Africa. I thank you. [Applause.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr T S Setona): Order, hon members! Hon members, I want to apologise for the inconvenience caused to the Deputy Minister of Correctional Services. Your name is printed on the list that I have. But as I’m about to call you, I was advised that you had not been notified that you were on the speakers’ list. So I had to wait for this issue to be sorted out. [Interjections.] No, not by yourself, chief. I’m addressing the House. So what do I do? I have to call the next speaker so that I’m cleared, because the message is not clear whether you are going to speak or not. It’s not my fault. I’m sure it was visible that somebody came to advise me. I don’t even want to read some of the things here. They are written in plain English. This was not a question of mother tongue versus a foreign language. It was confusing. So, on that note I want to apologise. However, the floor is yours, Deputy Minister. [Applause.]

The DEPUTY MINISTER OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES: Thank you, Chairperson. I was just sitting there thinking that if this hadn’t been my first appearance in the NCOP in my new capacity, I certainly would have fought. But, I am not going to do that.

Ministers, Deputy Ministers, MECs, members of the NCOP, it indeed gives me great pleasure to return to the National Council of Provinces and address the House as Deputy Minister of Correctional Services. As some of you might know, this has been my home for five years. [Interjections.] Thank you.

As colleagues know, I was appointed in February of this year. Since that time, I have been on a very steep learning curve regarding the many complexities and challenges facing our criminal justice system. In my address, I will try to respond to some of the challenges raised as well and, at the end, maybe see if I can make additional responses. However, I am sure that the Minister of Safety and Security is also very capable of responding to some of these areas that were raised.

In my address, I would like to expand a bit more on some of the issues that were raised by the Minister, as well as make a plea to you, as members of this House, to spread our message of Operation Masibambisane. The Department of Correctional Services is propagating the message of correction, rehabilitation and social reintegration, and that should be a shared responsibility.

Most colleagues who spoke earlier have acknowledged that the overcrowding of our correctional facilities is the single biggest challenge facing the Department of Correctional Services and has a significant impact on both the rehabilitation programme in particular and also the criminal justice system as a whole. Let me assure members that that issue is receiving our urgent and undivided attention. You will be aware that our plans for the building of eight new centres are proceeding steadily, albeit not without difficulties. However, as the Department of Correctional Services, our focus has also turned towards the strengthening of our community correctional services so that we can ensure that petty offenders stay out of our centres but still benefit from a rehabilitation programme.

Within the DCS, we have come to realise that the rehabilitation of first- time and habitual offenders is an impossible task, unless these offenders are able to return to their communities with the prospect of all four pillars of social reintegration being put in place, that is housing, education, employment and indeed the family. Many offenders on the verge of leaving our facilities are faced with the reality that not only do they not have shelter, education or a job, often they are not wanted by their families who may actually be afraid of them. As the department, we recognise that all the good we may do in the rehabilitation of an offender whilst he or she is in our facilities will come to nothing if they find themselves on the streets upon their release.

Our experience informs us that it is the marginalised who are the most susceptible to a life of crime, especially when individuals experience a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low income, poor housing, a high-crime environment, bad health and a dysfunctional family environment.

Social exclusion refers to the dynamic process of being shut out fully or partially from anyone of the social, economic, political or cultural systems, which determine the social integration of a person in society. These are the factors that create the scenario for an entry into a life of crime. Therefore if these conditions exist for offenders upon their release, they will inevitably go back into the cycle of crime and find themselves back in our correctional centres.

Our message as the Department of Correctional Services is quite simple: that in order for the offender who has served his or her term to become a productive citizen, we as the community need to play our role in providing the appropriate support systems. Therefore the department has proposed an integrated support system. The purpose of this support system is, amongst others, to make it possible for offenders to attend correctional and developmental programmes in their own residential areas; to allow for offenders to be counselled by psychologists, social workers and religious workers in their own residential areas or their communities where they come from; to make provision for offenders to render community services within their own communities, unless the court directs otherwise; and to, where necessary, refer offenders to agencies for further assistance or support within the community during their reintegration programme.

Communities, many a time, may prefer to leave the responsibility of supervising re-entry, family reintegration, seeking employment and monitoring compliance conditions to the law-enforcement agencies alone. However, successful social reintegration is a multisectoral and community- driven process. The Department of Correctional Services can only serve as a critical resource and a guiding partner. Without a doubt, we will need the support of partners and stakeholders, and yourselves, in many of these initiatives in order for us to deliver on our mandate.

There is therefore an urgent need for proactive and robust social reintegration strategies, which could include the following or some of the following: a mentoring programme, support and adult education, well- structured day programmes, sheltered employment projects, life skills training, recreational activity-based programmes as well as educational and employer links.

Even though the purpose of imprisonment is to punish offenders and to put them where they can do no harm, our White Paper requires us to prepare them for subsequent release and reintegration back into society. We are, however, aware that imprisonment does not achieve the second objective as a large number of former offenders reoffend within five years of their release. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which includes socialisation to prison culture, lack of family support, lack of education and vocational training, and social prejudices. Spending many years in prison may be a factor in desocialisation as it very often destroys the offenders’ ties with families, their communities and the rest of society.

As a department, we have called on business or the private sector to give former offenders a second chance in life. We therefore appreciate the active involvement of some business organisations that are starting to partner with organisations of former offenders in order to offer employment opportunities to these former offenders.

We recognise and appreciate the involvement of some small enterprises that have recognised the skills potential of some of our offenders who are trained in various trades within our centres, and they then actively recruit from there. Their efforts bring pride and dignity to the few families who are able to add yet another, if not the only, breadwinner to their homes. Consequently, these efforts reduce the chance of repeat offending and, more importantly, promote good citizenship.

Speaking to juveniles and children in detention is a major challenge and one of the members also mentioned that earlier on. During this month of June, which is also called Youth Month, and as Child Protection Week draws to a close, it is prudent that I remind you about our constitutional stipulation and requirement that prohibits the admission of children to correctional facilities, except as a last resort. I refer to chapter 2 of the Bill of Rights, clause 28, and I quote:

Every child has the right – (g) not to be detained except as a measure of last resort, in which case, in addition to the rights a child enjoys under sections 12 and 35, the child may be detained only for the shortest appropriate period of time, and has the right to be – (i) kept separately from detained persons over the age of 18 years; and (ii) to be treated in a manner, and kept in conditions, that take account of the child’s age.

In his state of the nation address, in February this year, the President promised, and I quote: “… to reduce the number of children in custody.” We concur with President Mbeki that children do not belong in custody. Consequently, we have instructed all regions to conduct an audit of children in our correctional facilities with the intention of engaging our partners in the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster, and Social Development in particular, in seeking alternative accommodation for these young people who find themselves in conflict with the law.

We have, together with the Department of Social Development, already identified several places of safety for young offenders. We have also designed intervention programmes to cater for these young offenders’ development, care, correction of their offending behaviour and reintegration into society.

The general theme of our White Paper is corrections, rehabilitation, reintegration and new beginnings. All of us, including ourselves as Members of Parliament, offenders, correctional officials, the family, the community and society at large make this theme a reality.

We also note that there are some challenges that have been raised. Unfortunately, my time is running out. I will not be able to respond and do justice to the responses but we are available to the committee and to this House at large for engaging on some of these challenges to try and find some remedies together.

The MINISTER OF SAFETY AND SECURITY: Chairperson, a number of speakers raised the issue of training and skilling in the service. Therefore I would like to indicate some of the things we are doing.

For starters, the matter of detectives is receiving very serious attention. But in terms of our training, what we did in the last financial year was that we focused mainly on functional and operational interventions as we were training our people. This time around we are looking at operational command, control management and leadership development. In terms of that, we have established a course which is called “station management learning programmes” that will ensure that all our station commissioners undergo intensive training over the next three years, in order to be able to deal with those matters. The course will end on 31 March 2009 and is staggered over that period.

Apart from this, we also ensure that every time we produce people that we train in our college, 30% of them go into detective services. Therefore you will imagine that 30% of those who are directed to the detective services are females. We are directing people who are coming out of these training programmes to the local stations. What is going to happen there is that we will use the experienced people who will be redeployed from the area offices to the local stations, together with people that we are producing in terms of our new training programme, which is producing better qualified detectives. This year, 1 340 of those detectives shall have been trained fully. Of course, 30% of them will be females. We also intend to retain the experience that we have regarding the detective services, by ensuring that experienced members of our detective service will go through three levels of promotion within the detective services while still handling operational matters in the police rather than continue what has been happening in the past, where people who were promoted were shifted away from functional policing into managerial positions. We will change that around so that a person will find three levels of promotion and continue to do functional police work.

Apart from this, our general investigators are being put through a course that is multifaceted and relates to specialisation. These are people who are being prepared, therefore, to be able to deal with all kinds of investigations relevant to all the types of crime that we have in South Africa.

Of course, when we talk about more training, I do wish to indicate that we now have 10 training facilities right across the country. In those facilities, just for this year, we have 11 000 people who are being trained. They are the people who, when they finish their course, will be sent to the ground.

Someone else raised the issue of trauma that our members are experiencing. I do want to say, with regards to that, that we have an establishment in the police, an entire division called the Employee Assistance Service Programme. In terms of that, our members there are both proactive and reactive in dealing with the traumas that our members experience. It is comprised of people who are psychologists, social workers and spiritual workers. Therefore these are people who are training our members, particularly the commanders, to watch for the warning signs of potential suicidal attitudes among our people and continue to provide emotional support. That establishment is being continuously reviewed so that if we need to strengthen it, this can be done in order for it to fulfil its functions.

Our training continues to be based on proper skilling. Recently, we trained five pilots and one of them is a woman. There is a new learnership programme in forensic science that is being developed to attend to this matter of scarce skills. Among others, this is designed to improve skills, including new crime-resolving skills. I said we have 10 people-training institutions and 50% of them are commanded by females.

Someone mentioned the matter of people whom we are losing in the department. Obviously there are people we lose through normal natural attrition. The fact that at the end of this current Medium-term Expenditure Framework cycle we shall have in place 178 910 members indicates that our net gain will, therefore, be a total of 22 850 members.

The matters that were raised by Mr Worth do not require any special attention. [Laughter.] But what I want to say is the following: You know that those people thrive on such sensationalism and exaggeration. That is not funny. Everything they will say is exaggerated so much. Now, he has talked about a tsunami of crime. I told them yesterday in the National Assembly that, for the first time, they are seeing the ugly face of crime in South Africa, because apartheid so insulated them that they did not see crime at all. Therefore they think that our country is tottering under such a wave of crime that he referred to it as tsunami.

He talked about the matter that relates to Soli Philander. There is something else he said but he said it in an undertone – the fact that Soli Philander said we must all join hands and deal with crime. He was not talking about being vigilantes and what have you. He was talking about the necessity for us, together, to join hands and fight crime.

However, of course, it is the responsibility of the DA to be negative. Let them be negative, it won’t assist them. The fact that they are not gaining support has to do with their negativity. They are so negative that they have ceased being a factor in the socioeconomic and body politic of this country. There you are; sit where you are and that’s where you will always be. [Interjections.] In fact, it would be so nice if they could leave other structures as well and allow us to do the work of transforming our country, unimpeded by them and their negativity.

The issue of vehicles was raised. We started a project in the Western Cape where we track vehicles. We know exactly where all the vehicles in Khayelitsha and Nyanga are. We are able to track them. We are going to do this all over the country. So we will know those police officials who take their vehicles and park them at girlfriends’ houses, shebeens and so on because this system can tell that this car has been parked for longer than necessary. We are able to get hold of those people and ask them why they are parked there. I have experienced how this thing works; so wonderfully.

I do wish to talk also about the issue of children in conflict with the law, a matter that was raised by Mr Hendrickse. I want to repeat something that I told my colleagues the MECs at our last meeting. There is money that government has allocated for the establishment and opening of secure places of safety for our children, away from the correctional services detention centres. There is money. Go to your Premiers. That money must be used in order for us to find these facilities. There are many of these facilities that are lying unused all over the country. You will find them in Limpopo. In Limpopo there are so many colleges that were used in the past that are now lying unused. Let’s refurbish those and convert them into these secure places of safety for our children. [Applause.] I want to commend the North West, that has taken this leadership role with regard to this. They have a number of secure places of safety for our children. Let the other provinces emulate that example, which is an important one.

Concerning the matter of the Scorpions, unfortunately, I won’t respond because this matter is receiving attention at other levels, but thank you very much for your participation. [Applause.]

Debate concluded.

The Council adjourned at 13:35.