REPORT
OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON CORRECTIONAL SERVICES ON ANNUAL REPORT AND
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES FOR 2005/06,
DATED
The
Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services, having considered the Annual
Report and Financial Statements of the Department of Correctional Services for
2005/06,
reports as follows:
A. Introduction
The Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services has
scrutinised the Annual Report of the Department of Correctional Services for
2005/06,
including the Report of the Auditor General.
The Portfolio Committee had the following meetings to
discuss the 2005/06 Annual Report and Financial Statements of the Department of
Correctional Services (DCS):
·
Deliberations with
National Treasury on Legislative Oversight through Annual Reports of
Departments as well as Research Analysis of the 2005/6 Annual Report of the
DCS.
·
Formal deliberations
and assessment on the Audit Report of the Auditor General on the 2005/6 Annual
Report of the DCS; financial performance and expenditure of the DCS for
2005/6.
·
Hearings with the
Department of Correctional Services on the 2005/6 Annual Report of the DCS.
B. Findings and Key issues of Concern:
The Portfolio Committee notes the following key issues:
1. Deliberations
with National Treasury on Legislative Oversight through Annual Reports of
Departments.
·
The role of
Portfolio Committees was clearly indicated in this guideline and it was
emphasised that it is the duty of the Committee to question the DCS on any
irregularities that comes to the Committees attention.
·
The Committee agreed
that the interaction with the National Treasury was empowering, but wanted to
know whether the Executive is aware of the guidelines by Treasury on how to
analyse Annual Reports of Departments, as it appears that the Department is not
aware of this.
2. Research
Analysis of the 2005/6 Annual Report of the DCS.
·
The Research
Analysis identified many shortcomings in the structure of the Annual Report. It
does not report on all the targets as set out in the Strategic Plan and in many cases it was unclear as to whether the targets
had been met or not.
·
Programme 1: Administration: The DCS has developed an Integrated Human Resource
Strategy to address recruitment, retention of scarce skills and the quality of
performance management and development systems.
Equity
and Recruitment: It is
unclear as to what the targets are for gender and racial equity in the
DCS.
Vacancies: The overall
vacancy rate for the Department for 2005/06 was 7.8%. This is an increase from
the previous year where the vacancy rate was 7.3%. The DCS thus did not meet their target to
decrease the vacancy rate.
Performance
rewards and promotions: An
interim promotion model was developed, negotiated and implemented. The
target for 2005/06 was to finalise the career pathing models (i.e. the
promotion model). It seems as if this
target was not met, as the promotion model is an interim one.
Skills
and training: The DCS
has embarked on a skills audit to identify existing skills and skills required.
Disciplinary
and corruption cases:
68% of the 359 corruption and fraud related cases registered for 2005/6 were
finalised. The DCS is implementing the anti-corruption strategy in partnership
with the Special Investigation Unit
(SIU) and the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO).
Vetting
of officials: 50% of
all officials should have been vetted, but only the officials from the
Financial
Management: The
fact that DCS has received a qualified audit opinion from
the Auditor General for the past 5 years makes it clear that there are
financial management problems in the Department.
Review
of policies: The
DCS is in the process of reviewing policies and procedures to bring them in
line with the White Paper.
· Programme
2 Security:
Unnatural
Deaths and assaults: Both
the number of unnatural deaths in prison and the number of assaults decreased
in 2005/06 in comparison with the previous year.
Escapes: The number of escapes decreased substantially from 171
in 2004/05 to 112 in 2005/6, however escapes has become increasingly violent.
The decrease in escapes is attributed to the installation of new security equipment,
training of officials and the development of a strategy to deal with escapes.
Security
Plan: The Security
Management Policy and Minimum Security Standards for Correctional Services were
approved during 2005/06.
Security
Infrastructure: Access
control equipment was installed in 66 Correctional Centres at a cost of R88
million.
·
Programme 3 Corrections:
Centres
of Excellence: The 36
Centres of Excellence (6 in all 6 regions) were launched in 2005/06. A project manager has been appointed to
ensure optimum performance of the C of E.
Unit
Management: The
Report does not state whether the DCS has completed and approved a national
resource provisioning plan with regard to identifying the necessary resources
required to implement unit management at the various centres.
Risk
assessment, profiling and sentence plans: The
2005/06 Report states that the target of using the risk assessment and offender
profile tool for 23% of offenders was not met, but it does state that the tools were developed
during 2005/06 (in draft form).
Offender
Rehabilitation Path: The
Offender Rehabilitation Path (ORP) was developed which outlines a process to be
followed from admission to release, including reintegration into the community,
in line with the White Paper on Corrections.
Overcrowding: In March 2006, the total inmate population was 150 302
in comparison with 180 335 in April 2005.
However, the approved offender capacity was only 114 796 and thus there
was still a 76.6% rate of overpopulation.
·
Programme 4 Care:
Social work,
psychological and spiritual sessions for inmates: The DCS reached its targets in terms psychological
sessions and spiritual care sessions, whilst the number of social work sessions
dropped.
Pharmacies: 18 community service pharmacists were allocated to DCS
in 2005/06. The Department of Health
facilitated registration, listing and licensing of DCS pharmacies to ensure
compliance with the new pharmacy legislation.
HIV/AIDS: The target for training of 420 inmates as master
trainers and peer educators for HIV/AIDS awareness was surpassed and 1 254
inmates were trained. The targets for training correctional officials including
health care workers of 1 160 trained officials were not met and only 355
officials were trained
·
Programme 5 Development:
Implementation
of new policies and procedures:
Development policies and procedures were to be implemented at 50% of all
management areas prioritising the C of E. The procedures have been developed
but not implemented.
Education: According to the Report, the target for the number of
inmates participating in formal education programmes was not met due to the
special remissions
Skills
Development:
According to the Report, the reason why only 8 502 offenders (in comparison with a target of 21 000) participated in skills development programmes in 2005
was due to the late receipt of funds from the Department of Labour. In 2004/05,
15 004 offenders participated in these programmes.
Work
opportunities: Only 3 400 internal work opportunities were provided to
inmates in comparison to a target of 32 700.
·
Programme 6 Social Reintegration:
Community
Corrections: The Report states that the target of reducing the number of probationers and parolees
per supervisory officer to 30 was not achieved.
In addition, only 10.3% of absconders were traced in comparison with a
target of more than 36%.
Correctional
Supervision and Parole Boards:
The DCS developed Directives involving Complainants Involvement in Correctional
Supervision and Parole Boards (CSPB). The DCS also developed a Service Charter
and Minimum Standards for Victims. The
Boards did not reach the target of placement of 55% of cases before it under
correctional supervision. The Report
attributes this to longer sentencing patterns. The chairpersons and vice
chairpersons of the 52 boards nationwide were inaugurated in 2005/06.
·
Programme 7 Facilities:
New
Prisons:
According to the Strategic Plan, 4 new prisons should be completed by 2006/7,
but this target will not be reached, because of major setbacks during 2005/6.
The Annual Report does not report back on the target in terms of the second
group of 4 prisons, which
referred to the completion of a feasibility study.
Maintenance: Only 15% of prisons were audited with regard to minimum standards and norms during 2005/6 compared to the target of 25% that were
to be audited.
Own
Resources: Own
Resources refers to the use of offenders in maintenance work in prison. The DCS was meant to have approved a policy
in this regard during 2005/06 and establish capacity building for the
implementation of this policy.
3. Formal
deliberations on the 2005/6 Audit Report of
Auditor General and the financial performance and expenditure trends of the DCS.
In a meeting with the Office of the Auditor General (AG) and
National Treasury: Directorate: Correctional Services, the following key issues
were highlighted:
3.1
Key issues of concern raised by the Auditor General:
·
The DCS attributes its problems with internal control on problems with its
information system (computer systems and programmes) and says that it can only
address these problems once the systems have been attended to.
·
However in the
opinion of the AGs office, the problem is not with the information system. The
problem lies with the fact that while DCS has a Compliance Management Policy,
this policy is poorly monitored and there are poor controls at the lower levels
(i.e. in prisons, areas, and regions) where incorrect information is fed to
Head Office. In the opinion of the AG,
if lower level supervision was properly performed (i.e. the information was
monitored by supervisors at all these levels), then the information could be
more verifiable. The problem lies with
monitoring and DCS needs to ensure compliance before reports are sent to Head
Office.
·
The AGs office has
stated that there are at least 3 Qualifications in this report which can be
resolved by the end of 2006 to ensure that they do not result in Qualifications
in the next audit.
·
The monitoring and
review processes at institutional, area and regional level is the main problem
facing DCS which leads to poor audit performance.
·
According to the AG,
while Regional Commissioners try to attend Audit Committee meetings, the Accounting Officer must attend these meetings as
well as the Chief Deputy Commissioners.
·
The lack of
financial skills in DCS was identified as a problem.
·
Public Private
Partnerships Prisons (APOPS): The AGs office is adamant that the APOPS lease
should be identified as finance and not an operating lease and this opinion has
been substantiated by 2 other independent auditors. According to Treasury, it
may be because DCS has an incorrect understating of the powers of accounting
officers to sign a finance lease (they may in fact sign a finance lease for a
PPP).
·
Public Private
Partnerships Prisons (APOPS): The DCS told the AG that they will set up a
meeting with themselves, Treasury and the AG to resolve the disagreement over
the operating versus finance lease issue.
To date (10 months into the new financial year), they have not done so.
In the opinion of the AG, these matters should have been resolved in 2005 and
should not have resulted in a qualification.
·
Asset Management:
The AG raised the concern that the problems with Asset Management began as a
Matter of Emphasis as early as 2002/03 and turned into a Qualification in
2005/06, because the problem was not seriously addressed by DCS
during the interim period.
·
The AGs office
believes that the problems with asset management can be addressed before the
integrated system comes on line, by DCS being aware of the information that is required
and then putting in place processes to address this.
·
According to the AG, the Provisioning
Administration System (PAS) can
reconcile differences between Basic
Accounting System (BAS) and the Web Asset Tool (WAT). This is not
done at regular intervals at area and regional level. The AG is of the opinion that this is achievable.
·
Medkor: The problem
identified with Medkor relating to amounts paid on face value was identified
last year and not rectified. This year,
the problem is compounded by the fact that the DCS cannot identify who its
current and continuation members are. In
the opinion of the AG, this problem with the database of current and
continuation members is easy to rectify and should have been sorted out by DCS
before the end of the 2005/06 audit as it just needs
commitment and manpower. In the opinion of the AG,
this should not have escalated to a Qualification.
·
Medkor: The AGs
office said that they asked for the involvement of the internal audit committee
to resolve the problem with the medical aids specifically the checking of the
database, but DCS stated that they did not have enough staff to
do this.
·
Medkor: The AGs
office says the problem with the medical aid database may have arisen because
DCS does not have contracts with the medical aids.
·
Employee benefits
and Leave: The AG stated that lack of
skills and capacity in the Human Resources division is
a serious problem. The AG also said that they have informed the DCS that this Emphasis of Matter will escalate to a
Qualification if they do not take urgent steps to address the problem.
·
Supply chain
management: The AGs office has stated that the response of DCS to the concerns
that it raised over contracts and the level of sign off were ‘wishy washy’ and
that there was little detail in the response.
The Special Investigation Unit is addressing some of these
concerns.
3.2 Key
issues of concern raised by National Treasury