Newly-appointed Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald says the state spends R400 daily on a bandiet who can’t pay R100 for bail.
Groenewald says prisons across the country are battling with overcrowding, and measures have to be implemented to curtail the problem.
With the correctional facilities full to the brim, he said yesterday that his department has no option but to hire additional staff to guard the inmates, despite a reduced budget, reports IOL.
“To address the overcrowding, it is not just we have to ensure that more people are employed to look after the prisoners. We refer to the remand detentions, we have to look at that matter and to reduce, for instance, our remand detainees awaiting trial.
“We have situations where there are people there who could not afford a bail of R100 but it is costing the department about R400 per day to keep them in our facilities.
“We will look into that matter to see how we can reduce that. We are talking here about 60,000 of those inmates that are in our facilities,” the minister said.
Reducing the number of awaiting trial prisoners will also relieve the prisons from the challenge of overcrowding.
The minister said that he will be meeting different organisations who represent inmates, as he believes that the rights of the bandiete should be respected.
“My policy is that I will have an open door to see how we all can play a role to ensure that we better conditions in our prisons,” he said.
The minister said to address the challenge of rampant crime, more and more people will have to be sent to jail.
This, Groenewald said, means more money has to be spent on correctional services to accommodate the detainees.
The minister says his department requires hi-tech equipment, for example to ensure that cellphone signals are cut for prisoners, but such equipment cannot be bought under the limited budget.
jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za