One not in agreement with Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald to build more prison is Kgomotso Ramoboleng.

She chairs Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services (PCCS) and said, after a Department of Correctional Services (DCS) briefing, building new prisons would not solve the inmate over-crowding problem.

She said the solution lies in addressing the justice system’s fundamental problems, including the delay in the processing of trials and completion of cases by courts, among other things. She said trials should be sped up and completed within a reasonable time. She also called on the department to have bilateral engagements with other relevant government departments in the justice, security and correctional services cluster to deal with the problem of overcrowding.

The statement was released after a DCS briefing to the PCCS earlier this month. Agenda items included progress on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on infrastructure projects with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) and progress on Baviaanspoort and Modderbee correctional centre kitchen projects.

On over-crowding the committee heard it stood at “approximately 46%” when bed spaces were tallied against the prison population. The department said that requires the construction of 100 new correctional centres with a bed space capacity of 500 each or alternatively 50 new correctional centres with a bed space capacity of 1 000 each.

Making DCS’ task in this regard more difficult is a cut in infrastructure allocation to R721 million down from R1 billion. Additionally, Minister Dean Macpherson’s department has “devolved the majority of maintenance responsibilities” to Groenewald’s area of responsibility.

Earlier this year Groenewald stated that new prisons will cost the South African taxpayer an estimated R36 billion. This comes from a costing which has it that a 1000 inmate bed space medium correctional centre comes to between R680 000 and R725 000 per bed space. Alternatively, a 500 inmate facility comes in at between R725 000 and R810 000 per bed space. For high/maximum security centres the bed space cost starts at R1 080 000 and can rise to R1 400 000.

Groenewald moted however that “the current fiscal environment is not accommodative of this requirement.”

Currently, the department has 69 infrastructure projects registered, comprised of maintenance and capital projects. However, to deal with over crowding, two new build projects are underway. One is at Burgersdorp in Eastern Cape, where a project for the construction of a 500-bed Correctional Centre was awarded during April 2022, and it is expected to be finalised during 2026. The second project, at Parys in Free State, “the construction contract was terminated during February 2023, due to poor performance of the contractor.” Fortunately, the Minister added that “the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) appointed a replacement contractor during December 2023,” and the site is also expected to be completed in 2026.

On the positive side, the Minister revealed that during the period from September 2023 to July 2024, the department saw bed space capacity increase by 2 788.