Thank you very much, Chairperson. Let me express my gratitude to my colleagues; even though the Deputy Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development seems not to agree, I can only promise him a weekend in Pollsmoor as a way of appeasing him; just a weekend in Pollsmoor, free of charge!
To Kgoshi Mokoena, I want to say that firstly, I have not received a proposal from Nicro in this regard. However, I'm informed that Nicro has made submissions to the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services at the request of the committee. Secondly, I currently don't have any statement to make since I'm not privy to the context and detail of such a report or a proposal, but I do need to say that prisons should be treated as prisons.
Prisons are security establishments; therefore, allowing businesses to be set up in prison is something that I would not recommend. We are dealing with criminals that are sometimes very violent, therefore, I wouldn't want to recommend that businesses be set up for other people working with them there.
There is, however, a lot of work being done by offenders inside and outside of prisons, for example, renovating schools and building churches like Reverend Mthini's church in Gugulethu and another church in Mitchells Plain. We are in that business of building churches and it is a way of asking people for forgiveness that we build the churches.
Building educare centres is one thing that I'm open to. We use offenders to build educare centres for children, because they have offended against some of the parents and some of the children, and also to renovate old age homes, as we will be doing, probably for the old age home in Gugulethu.
They are building houses for destitute people there - one or two houses, not on a large scale and not competing with contractors but making sure that we have our own way of again saying that we are very sorry and remorseful for the things we've done.
On 28 November 2007 we will be handing over about 650kg of vegetables and more than 700kg of meat to the Gugulethu old age home. This is all coming from our farms; this time from Helderstroom farm and from Drakenstein. These are vegetables that are planted, looked after and harvested by offenders. This is surplus veggies and surplus meat that we have and if there is an old age home or any educare centre near your place, as a public representative, please feel free to approach my centres, not for yourselves but for those who are destitute. We can help in that; even with the renovations and building, so please try and talk to my members. Thank you.
Plans to release petty criminal offenders held in correctional service centres due to inability to pay fines
143. Mr O M Thetjeng (DA) asked the Minister of Correctional Services:
Whether there are any plans to release petty criminal offenders who are in correctional service centres due to their inability to pay fines, thus creating unnecessary overcrowding; if not, why not; if so, when? CO2894E