The Department of Correctional Services has raised concern by the high number of foreign nationals serving life sentences in the country.
The Committee Chairperson Kgomotso Ramolobeng reflected on the department’s budget vote which stated that there’s about 24 000 foreign national inmates in correctional centres across the country, which costs the state R11 million per day.
Ramolobeng called for urgent action and steps towards an agreement on the inmate exchange programmes with other countries.
“We intend to review this provision specifically as it relates to the incarceration of foreign nationals.
We want to provide for foreign nationals serving life sentences to serve their sentences in their countries of origin due to the costs associated with housing foreign inmates in correctional facilities,” said Ramolobeng.
The chairperson implored the Department’s Minister, Pieter Groenewald, to partner with her counterpart from Home Affairs, to conduct further consultations in the matter.
Another area of concern raised by Ramolobeng was the high number of remand detainees, which she said were the biggest contributor to overcrowding at correctional centres.
“The Department of Correctional Services has a total of 166 008 inmates in correctional centres across the country, of which 104 117 are sentenced, and 61 891 are remand detainees.
We are concerned about the staggering cost of keeping and maintaining remand detainees in correctional facilities, which currently costs the department R482 per day and just above R13 000 per month for each detainee.
Taking into consideration the pressing issue of overcrowding in our correctional facilities, many remand detainees are in the centres for months and years simply because they cannot afford to pay bail, which at times is as low as R300,” Ramolobeng explained.
Furthermore, as a means of cost-cutting measures, the committee recommended that the department make use of offender-labour services under a skills development programme where applicable.
It believes this will also contribute to immediate repairs and infrastructure refurbishments at correctional services across the country.
