Deputy Speaker, hon Minister, as you indicated earlier, on 5 August the portfolio committee visited the Kimberley Correctional Centre where we had an opportunity to interact with the centre management, the four officials that were held hostage and a cross-section of inmates.
At this point, Minister, let us also agree with most of what our colleagues in the various political parties have said - including what you have said. We agree with all of that. There is one issue that Mr Groenewald raised which I will come back to later.
It is important at this point to indicate that the portfolio committee as a whole is united in the condemnation of those that participated in the hostage taking and in the burning of the facility. There can be no justification at all, hon members. We want to reiterate it: There can be no justification for the taking of hostages and for placing people's lives in danger, whether they are inmates or officials. Notwithstanding what Mr Fritz and others have said about the shortcomings, there can be no justification for taking hostages.
Having said that, we have a few concerns or observations that we'd like to raise, and they have been raised previously. We did observe as a committee, that the facility houses hardened offenders together with first-time, young offenders in the same cells. We are of the view that this will be a problem in terms of rehabilitation.
Firstly, we've been arguing for a while that at some point we will have to find a way of separating the first-time offenders from those that are hardened in order to speed up the rehabilitation. This is one area, Minister, which we think needs to be looked at.
Secondly, and you also alluded to this, Minister, we need to relook the deployment of our staff. You are correct, Minister, in that the four hostages or the four officials that were taken hostage were very young ladies with very little or no experience whatsoever in dealing with the nature of the inmates that were there. We have to look at how we deploy officials to our facilities. I am glad that you have, in fact, raised that, Minister.
Thirdly, another problem that we have picked up on is that there seems to have been very poor planning in, one, populating the facility - and we've spoken about the mixture of inmates - but two, also in the speed in which it was done. It seems to be the norm that it takes about six months roughly, so that the planning can be done, but in this particular case, in less than two months we filled 80% to 90% of it. I think that is an area that we need to look into.
Fourthly, hon members from both sides of the House spoke about the need to clarify and to reclassify inmates in the facility. I don't think that it would be helpful to have inmates in Kimberley that are maximum security inmates when we are led to believe that Kimberley is a medium centre facility. Surely some of the inmates that we saw there could quite easily qualify as maximum security inmates. We think that there is a need to classify the status of the facility, so that once we have clarified it, those that do not belong there can be sent to the appropriate facilities.
Fifthly, Madam Deputy Speaker, chairperson and Minister, it is our view - and you have alluded to it as well - that there is a need to urgently review senior management at that facility. We think that some of the senior management personnel are neither capable nor competent to run a facility of that nature. That is the view of the portfolio committee, and we think that it's an area that you need to look at.
One of my colleagues spoke about how the lighter or matches got into the facility. It is an area of concern for us that in some facilities of correctional services there is a no-smoking policy, like in Kokstad. In other facilities there's a smoking policy. We think that there must be a standard policy in terms of smoking or no smoking in a correctional centre.
My own view, and a view shared by many of my colleagues, is that a correctional centre is a public facility. Public facilities generally are no-smoking areas, and it might sound harsh but I am of the view that all correctional centres should be no-smoking areas. That's my personal view. [Applause.] I want to turn next to what Mr Groenewald said.
Meneer, ek kan nie met u saamstem dat hulle 'n les geleer moet word as daar iets verkeerd gedoen is in die fasiliteit nie. Korrektiewe Dienste gaan nie oor lesse leer vir mense nie. Dit gaan oor rehabilitasie. Ek kan dus nie met u saamstem nie. Ek dink wat ons moet doen, is om hulle wat betrokke was by hierdie tipe goed te stuur na plekke waar hulle gerehabiliteer kan word. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Sir, I cannot agree with you that they must be taught a lesson if they do something wrong in the facility. Correctional Services is not about teaching people lessons. It is about rehabilitation. Therefore, I cannot agree with you. I think what we should do is to send those who were involved in these things to places where they can be rehabilitated.]
A facility such as Kimberley, which should be a flagship, should be used for rehabilitation. I agree with you that those who are guilty must be sent for serious rehabilitation, but it can't be that we say inmates ...
... moet 'n les geleer word.