Madam Chairperson, I extend warm greetings to the special guests who are present in the House today, and a special word of welcome to the NGOs, community members, members of the judiciary, religious workers, criminal justice stakeholders and all members of the Department of Correctional Services.
The valuable contributions made by these people in presenting rehabilitation programmes to inmates or conducting research, or through their involvement in parole boards or those of them working as independent visitors, remain an important component in the recipe for successful social reintegration and rehabilitation of all inmates. To all of them, a very big thank you. I also wish to acknowledge our chairperson, hon Vincent Smith, and our committee members from all parties for the robust and valuable contributions during our meetings and the spirit in which we conduct our meetings. I want to say thanks to them.
To the Minister and Deputy Minister, I thank you for your passion around women and children, and I know that you are going to carry that out. Children and women constitute one of the kinds of vacuums in our department that we really need to focus on, and with the Child Justice Act that is going to happen.
I am reminded today of my responsibility as a Member of Parliament to consider the issues on the table, bearing in mind the interests of all people in this country. I mention this because I strongly believe that, as we are called on today to approve the budget of the Department of Correctional Services, we must not look at the needs of the department or prisoners only, but we also have to consider the needs of all people, including the many victims of crime.
I say this against the background that we are now spending an amount of R41 million per day on the running of our correctional centres, and by next year we shall be spending more than R50 million per day. We therefore have to ask the question: Is it fair to spend this amount of money on the prisons while so many competing needs exist in our society? There is the need for better quality schooling, the need for improved health care and the need for decent housing, to mention but a few.
This argument is made worse by the many unanswered questions in the eighth qualified audit the department has received. It is made worse by the reports of the Special Investigating Unit, which were handed to the Minister last year, and which highlighted the deep-rooted corruption that existed at the highest level. It is made worse by the report submitted by the Inspecting Judge and other stakeholders of security equipment, valued at millions of rands, installed at 66 prisons but which is now standing in total disuse. It is made worse by serious allegations of irregularities in the awarding of catering contracts after privatising kitchens at certain correctional centres.
Yet, as Members of Parliament, representing the people of the country, we are asked year after year to approve the budget of the department, placing R15 billion of taxpayers' money at the disposal of this embattled department.
Yes, the Department of Correctional Services has very many committed, honest and hardworking members in its employ. Yes, they have many managers who operate with total integrity and loyalty. However, ladies and gentlemen, the evidence of poor management and corruption has become so overwhelming that we simply can no longer look away. If we do so, we will be failing our people. With a budget of R41 million per day, why are we receiving reports from heads of correctional centres about critical levels of understaffing, of budget cuts to the extent that critical programmes to inmates, such as sexual abuse programmes, can no longer be offered because social workers have been fired? There are reports of members of staff who are endangered daily and who battle to survive on their small salaries. So, where is all this money going?
We are told that the need for money is driven by overcrowding. This cannot be true, as the number of inmates over the past five years has remained the same. You have a new task team, which I hope is not going to cost us a lot of money, because we know the answers within our department. We know the protocols; we can implement the protocols. That is what we need to do.
We are also told that extra money is needed to finance the White Paper on Corrections, approved in 2005. The White Paper correctly calls for a departure from a Department of Correctional Services aimed at warehousing people to a Department of Correctional Services aimed at rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders. We support this, Madam Minister.
However, five years after the decision was taken by Parliament to invest in the rehabilitation of inmates, the department still spends less than 4% of its budget on the areas of development and social reintegration. What happened to the White Paper? It has become a white elephant, unfortunately, Madam Chair. [Laughter.] Instead, we continue to see an annual expansion in the number of personnel in top management and the amount paid in salaries. That is why the amount of money we spend on salaries has gone up from 60% of the total budget in 2006 to almost 70% this year. Year after year we read in the department's annual reports of money being wasted on contracts that add very little value, such as television sets, which were previously paid for by inmates themselves.
Millions of rands are paid to members of staff who remain on suspension for extraordinary long periods of time with full salary. This can't be right. A good example is the former chief financial officer of Correctional Services who remains on suspension for the past two years on full pay. Why these matters are never resolved, God only knows.
I want to add one point before I conclude. I wish to thank those members of staff who, despite the difficult times, remain committed to their task as correctional officials. I wish to thank those managers who perform their task with commitment, loyalty and honesty. I wish to thank all the role- players and stakeholders for their inputs during our public debates during the year.
I thank our three researchers, Swedish, US and British, for the research they did for me. Thank you very much for that. [Laughter.] [Interjections.] To the Minister and the Deputy Minister, I want to say ... [Interjections.]