ActionSA is deeply shocked by the appalling discoveries made during the latest Parliamentary oversight visit to correctional facilities in KwaZulu-Natal. The findings paint a grim picture of total lawlessness, rampant drug activity and reckless waste of taxpayer money, which serves as a direct reflection of the deteriorating state of prisons across the country.
Yet again, the Minister of Correctional Services, Pieter Groenewald, remains conspicuously absent from crucial Parliamentary oversight visits. How can the Minister claim to oversee the state of our correctional facilities when he refuses to set foot in them?
Firstly, lawlessness reigns unchecked within these facilities. The Portfolio Committee witnessed firsthand how contraband moves freely in and out of cells, with no visible enforcement of security protocols. Prison security appears entirely lax, allowing criminal activities to thrive behind bars.
Secondly, the blatant non-enforcement of the Department’s own Drug Master Plan is a glaring issue. There is zero effort to curb open and shameless drug dealing within prison walls. Shockingly, prisoners are not subjected to drug tests upon entry, and prison officials seemed clueless about their own Drug Master Plan, even asking members of the Portfolio Committee if they could be provided with a copy.
Lastly, taxpayers are footing the bill for shocking extravagance in these prisons. ActionSA previously revealed through a parliamentary reply to our question that it costs as much as R17 000 per month to house a single inmate. In the Pietermaritzburg Management area, visited cells were equipped with televisions, and inmates are allowed to smoke freely, which is a far cry from the disciplined, rehabilitative environment that correctional facilities are supposed to uphold.
ActionSA demands that Minister Groenewald join, even for just one day, the Portfolio Committee’s oversight visits. Let him witness with his own eyes the lawlessness, the unchecked drug trade, and the taxpayer-funded extravagance happening under his watch. Anything less is an insult to the South African public and a betrayal of the Department’s mandate to enforce discipline and rehabilitation within our prison system.
ActionSA believes that South Africans deserve a correctional system that upholds justice, not one that mirrors the very criminality it claims to contain.
“Waar is Pieter Groenewald?” – Minister of Correctional Services Conspicuously Absent from Parliamentary Oversight Visits
ActionSA is deeply shocked by the appalling discoveries made during the latest Parliamentary oversight visit to correctional facilities in KwaZulu-Natal. The findings paint a grim picture of total lawlessness, rampant drug activity and reckless waste of taxpayer money, which serves as a direct reflection of the deteriorating state of prisons across the country.
Yet again, the Minister of Correctional Services, Pieter Groenewald, remains conspicuously absent from crucial Parliamentary oversight visits. How can the Minister claim to oversee the state of our correctional facilities when he refuses to set foot in them?
Firstly, lawlessness reigns unchecked within these facilities. The Portfolio Committee witnessed firsthand how contraband moves freely in and out of cells, with no visible enforcement of security protocols. Prison security appears entirely lax, allowing criminal activities to thrive behind bars.
Secondly, the blatant non-enforcement of the Department’s own Drug Master Plan is a glaring issue. There is zero effort to curb open and shameless drug dealing within prison walls. Shockingly, prisoners are not subjected to drug tests upon entry, and prison officials seemed clueless about their own Drug Master Plan, even asking members of the Portfolio Committee if they could be provided with a copy.
Lastly, taxpayers are footing the bill for shocking extravagance in these prisons. ActionSA previously revealed through a parliamentary reply to our question that it costs as much as R17 000 per month to house a single inmate. In the Pietermaritzburg Management area, visited cells were equipped with televisions, and inmates are allowed to smoke freely, which is a far cry from the disciplined, rehabilitative environment that correctional facilities are supposed to uphold.
ActionSA demands that Minister Groenewald join, even for just one day, the Portfolio Committee’s oversight visits. Let him witness with his own eyes the lawlessness, the unchecked drug trade, and the taxpayer-funded extravagance happening under his watch. Anything less is an insult to the South African public and a betrayal of the Department’s mandate to enforce discipline and rehabilitation within our prison system.
ActionSA believes that South Africans deserve a correctional system that upholds justice, not one that mirrors the very criminality it claims to contain.