Chairperson, the advantage of having dynamic Ministers in our government is that in explaining the purpose of the Bill all changes were correctly outlined. That's wonderful! What remains for some of us is just to deal with minor issues only. On behalf of my committee, I would like to thank you, Minister, for doing such a wonderful job. That's super. I will leave out some of the issues in this Bill because the Minister has outlined them so nicely for us that I don't want to spoil them.
In this Bill, we are changing some of the terminology that was used in the principal Act. For example, what we used to call area managers will now be called commissioners. For example, in the principal Act we are still talking about "imprisonment", but in this Bill we have changed that to "incarceration". Another change in this Bill is that communities are now expected to play a role in the rehabilitation and integration of offenders. We have to understand that we are talking about people who are not just strangers. We are talking about our own people, our own sisters, our own sons, our own fathers, our own brothers and our own mothers who are in these unfortunate centres.
There were times when we expected the department to be the only player involved in rehabilitating offenders. There is no way this task of rehabilitating these offenders can only be the responsibility of the department. Rehabilitation cannot end in those correctional centres. By showing love and accepting these former offenders back into the society, we would be contributing immensely to rehabilitation.
If we do not do that, the danger is that we are pushing them away, and they will conclude that they are better off in correctional centres than in their own areas.
The good thing about this Bill is that the national commissioner can now allow NGOs, community organisations, religious organisations to interact with inmates now, just to make them feel that we are giving them a second chance. That will assist in making sure that when they come back into society they feel welcomed.
Members will remember that the principal Act limits the communication and visits by spouses, parents or relatives. That used to happen because the aim of our correctional facilities was just to punish and not to rehabilitate. But that has changed.
When we do our oversight visits to correctional centres, it is so heartbreaking and painful to find young children with their mothers inside those centres. The Act now allows mothers to keep their children with them until they are two years old. We supported this provision because theories based on research show that the critical period for development is between the age of six months and two to three years. So, these centres cannot be good for kids above two years, hence our support for that kind of provision.
Again, those facilities are not conducive to children who are above that age because, in our opinion, those kids are supposed to be either at crches or starting to prepare to go to school.
There is another provision in the Bill that, to me, is a major shift from what used to happen. That is the matter of placement and release if sentenced offenders must be prepared for placements, release and re- integration into society. In this Bill, there is a programme that had to be there to prepare them for release, not just to be released simply because they had finished their sentence.
The arrangement, in my opinion, will serve many purposes. One of these is to make sure that when sentenced offenders are back in society, they become better people. Of course, there are many reasons that one can cite why there is this programme that will be in place to sentenced offenders before they are released.
This Bill creates space for proper co-ordination amongst the three role- players in the department, that is, the Head of Correctional Centres, the National Commissioner and the Inspecting Judge. I cannot elaborate further because my colleagues will touch on this when they come to this podium.
Let me talk about the labour done by offenders. There will now be a programme that will make sure that these offenders do some work while in these centres. Of course, we cannot have a situation where these offenders will just eat and sleep. They will have to do some work.
There will be a programme again for these offenders to do some exercises whilst they are in these facilities. This is aimed at assisting them to remain healthy, but whatever will be taking place will first be communicated to the offender. All these programmes are aimed at reskilling these offenders so that when they come out, as I said, they are better people. We fully agree with the hon Minister that these people cannot just sit there and be idle ...
... ba e ja makwinya. [... eating fat cakes.]
They must do something.
One other shift is an improvement in the use of handcuffs or leg irons when these offenders are brought to court. You will recall that there were times when whatever the offence was, he or she had to be leg ironed or handcuffed. The shift I am talking about is that the use of handcuffs or leg-irons when these offenders are brought to court will now have to be properly facilitated and when that has been decided upon, it will be through the authorised decision of the courts. We agree that this must be done to dangerous criminals, as proposed by the Minister, but in the new provision, this can be done only when authorised by the courts. Imagine someone only serving one year or less being handcuffed, leg-ironed and with heavy escort when brought to court. This, to some of us, is just a waste of resources.
This can now only apply to sentenced offenders serving 24 months and above. Imagine a priest or an MP like hon Sogoni, such a wonderful man, being leg- ironed. That cannot be. He might have fallen but he is a very good citizen.
What I want to emphasise is the development of an incarceration framework. I want to urge the department to expedite it. We gave the department time to develop this framework within a given period. I think they can do it even before the time limit that we set. Thank you, hon Minister, for the co-operation we are getting from you personally, your Deputy Minister, your department and its officials. Last week the ``Mokoena Detachment'' conducted oversight work in Mpumalanga. As usual, your officials did not disappoint. They were there from the first day for the whole week - from day one to day five. All of that was possible, because of you as the political head of this department. When the committee wants the Minister to come and brief it about anything, even during the engagement about this Bill, the Minister is there. He availed himself to find out whether there were questions that the members wanted to ask him. What more can we ask for? As we said: No matter how deep the bottle is, the cream will always be on top. That's the hon Minister. For that, I want to thank you hon Minister on behalf of my "detachment".
Modulasetulo, e re ke se ke ka hlwa kgorong ka gore go ja kudu ga se go bolaya tlala. [Chairperson, let me not elaborate any further because more details do not always represent the truth.]
Let me thank my colleagues for the co-operation they always give me as the chairperson. To the officials, the State Law Adviser and all officials of the department, thank you very much for your tireless efforts. If it were not for you, I don't think we would have this final product being as good as it is.
I am leaving other things for my colleagues to iron out. I want to appeal to all parties to support this Bill because it is noble, humble and there is no politicking; it is just to assist our offenders. Thank you very much, Chairperson.