Chairperson, there are thousands of dedicated officials in the Department of Correctional Services who succeed, against overwhelming odds, in making a difference, and in achieving the goal of correcting and rehabilitating offenders. To them we say: Well done and keep it up.
We are also delighted that Mr Vernie Petersen has been appointed as the new national commissioner and we hope that he will be the proverbial new broom that will sweep clean.
But there's another side to the department. It's the side that has resulted in five successive qualified audits of the department's accounts. It's the department that, in its kid-glove treatment of Schabir Shaik and Tony Yengeni, made a mockery of their sentences. It's the department that has only half completed one of the eight new generation prisons promised between 2002 and 2006.
It's the department whose members allowed Annanias Mathe to escape from a prison that was supposedly the most secure in South Africa. It's the department that lost 8 292 tagging devices in Westville at a cost of more than R7 million that no one seems to have accounted for. It's the department that despite the huge challenges it faces underspent on last year's budget and left 1 718 funded posts unfilled. Under these circumstances we must and we will oppose the Vote. Thank you, Chairperson.