Date: 26/04/2005
Source: Department of Correctional Services
Title: Balfour: George Management Area
Address by the Minister of Correctional Services, Mr BMN Balfour, MP, to members of the George Management Area
Programme Director
Area Commissioner, Mr Breakfast
Heads of George, Mossel Bay, Knysna and Uniondale Correctional Centres
Management and Members of the Centres
At the end of this week it would be one year since the President called me in to his office to inform me that I would be filling the portfolio of Minister of Correctional Services.
At the time I had no idea what was awaiting me. I come from a Ministry where I had a budget that was smaller than your budget for the George Management Area to a budget in excess of nine billion rand. Accepting the position was accepting a huge responsibility not only for one of the biggest departmental budgets in government but also for more than 220 000 people.
Two weeks ago in Parliament when delivering my Budget Vote speech, I said that since being in Correctional Services, I have developed two passions. My first passion is you – the staff members of Correctional Services, and that is why I would go to any lengths to get the opportunity to personally meet as many of you as possible. My other passion is the inmates that we care for. Together, we make up the correctional services family, and I am determined that in the remaining four years of my term of office, we will continue building a Correctional Services Department that truly belongs to all South Africans.
This has been a most eventful year for me. It is a year that has had its frustrations at times. It has had its negatives but more importantly, it was a year in which I have come to respect and admire the role that you as correctional officials play within the criminal justice system. Your work is arguably the most under-valued in the public service. Very little appreciation is shown by the public for the excellent and thankless work that you do. Even government is still not recognising the full value of what you do on a daily basis.
As I visit correctional centres throughout the country, I see what you have to contend with; I recognise the pressures and strains that you have to face; and I increasingly appreciate the wonderful efforts that I witness as you go about carrying out your mandate of caring for inmates in a safe and secure environment.
I have not had much of an opportunity to visit your various correctional centres. I am going to make a point of visiting as many of your centres as possible during the time that I am your Minister because I want to share in your experiences and frustrations because your experiences and frustrations are also mine.
I have had the chance to get to know your Area Commissioner relatively well. He is a good man. He has shown that he leads an excellent team. The huge distances that he has to travel to each centre will take its toll on a lesser man but he believes that as your manager, he must lead from the front. He is my type of person. I want to dirty my hands by being involved in your daily work. I want to know what managers are doing in their offices and in meetings. I want to know what the custodial officials at the entrance gates do. I want to know what you do in your various sections. I want to know what you do in the workshops, in community corrections, during exercise times of inmates, during meal times and over weekends.
I do not want to know these things because I want to spy on you. No, I do it so that I can have an understanding of your daily lives while at work.
The Area Commissioner was saying to me that the George Management Area has one of the best records in ensuring that escapes are kept to a minimum. You apparently have not had a single escape over the last four years. That is great! I just hope that you can maintain such an excellent record.
What is important is that you continue building a team of committed correctional officials. I have a very simple approach to life. You get out of life what you make of it. In the same way, you get out of your career what you make of it. When the President told me that I was going to be your Minister, I could have told him: “Thank you chief, but I do not want the job.”
In much the same way, you are not forced to be a correctional official. You chose this career on your own. Nobody forced you to work for Correctional Services. As such, you must make it work for yourself. If you wake up every morning and go to work miserable and unhappy, then you are the creator of your own unhappiness and misery. You cannot blame anyone else for it. If the Area Commissioner is not happy with his correctional centres, he can go to the Commissioner and say, thank you, but I am out of here. You can do the same instead of complaining every day about your situation to anyone who cares to listen to you.
I know that your conditions of employment are not the best. I am fully aware that virtually all of you, as with any other person, believe that you should be paid better salaries. I agree with you. But that does not mean that you must now neglect your duties because you believe you are being underpaid. Remember, you made a choice to come here.
Tomorrow, we celebrate Freedom Day. It is a day that many of us thought would never come in our lifetime. Who would have thought in the 80s and early 90s that the African National Congress would be in power in 1994 and that Apartheid would collapse. We knew freedom would come but we did not know how soon.
In much the same way, we know that your service conditions must improve. Government is acutely aware that we need to be giving our correctional officials a better deal. But government also knows that we must act responsibly. There are many priorities that we must contend with. I visited some of the communities in George yesterday. There is much to do to give our people the shared better life that we speak of. We have high rates of unemployment and poverty. Our people need houses, jobs, schools. Our youth need opportunities. Our freedom can only be complete once South Africa truly belongs to all in the sense that the needs of every citizen are catered for.
But like freedom, it will not come overnight. Your conditions must and will improve but it will not come overnight. I therefore want to appeal to you to continue strengthening my hand by the type of services that you deliver. Continue ensuring that your centres are well-managed; that you carry out your duties with commitment, pride and humility; and that you remain the committed correctional official that you envisaged you would be when you applied for the job.
There are many issues that must be addressed and I have committed myself publicly on many occasions to do this. I know that many of you are unhappy that we have to cut on the huge amounts of money that we spend on overtime. The introduction of the seven-day week was no longer something that we could postpone. Like the coming of freedom, it was inevitable that we had to introduce it. We were not using public funds in the best way possible but by introducing it, it does not mean that we want to take food off from your family’s table. It certainly creates the possibility for us to employ more officials but it also allows us to improve the ratio of officials to inmates.
There are other matters such as medical aid, overcrowding, upward mobility that some of you know as promotion, housing, and so forth, that are of concern to you. I want to again stress that I am mindful of these matters and that I am continuously working towards a situation where my officials are not treated differently to their counterparts in the criminal justice system.
By now, you should all be familiar with the White Paper on Corrections in South Africa. Some of your centres might be designated centres of excellence. But every centre should be a centre of excellence. It is what you do about it that would determine whether there are standards of excellence at your centre or not. George Correctional Centre is not an official centre of excellence but the officials here have turned it into one. All of you can do the same whether it be Mossel Bay, Knysna, Uniondale or George. It depends on your commitment to giving effect to the ideals of the White Paper. Let it become a living document for all of us.
By now you are also aware that the department has entered into an agreement with Popcru. I want to stress here that the Union has confirmed its commitment to correctional services being an essential service. I do not think that this is matter has been a major problem in this Management Area, but I want to emphasise that discipline will remain the key to good order in our correctional services. I expect all correctional officials to wear their insignia with their uniforms. I expect people to perform their duties in line with our mandate. I expect you to respect your management. I expect management to respect those under their supervision. I expect safety and security to be non-negotiable. I expect you to report for duty when you should be doing so. I expect us to treat inmates humanely.
I do not expect corruption and collusion with inmates. I do not expect ill-discipline. I do not expect abuse of power and authority. I do not expect neglect of duties.
If we understand each other on these basics, we would have a wonderful working relationship. We would start winning the trust and respect of the public. We would start convincing the Treasury and Cabinet that correctional officials deserve better attention. But much of it depends on those who I regard as my passion – you, the correctional officials at the coalface of the work that you do.
Do let us join hands, and together, build the correctional system that we all desire.
You again have my assurance that I will continue striving for the best for you. I will also continue dropping in at your centres, sometimes without announcing my visits. This is not to catch you unawares but to share in the daily work that you do.
I must also mention that very soon our Regional Commissioner, Bongani Gxilishe, will no longer be with Correctional Services. He has been deployed to another department to continue with the work of government. In the time that he has been with us, he has served us well both in the region and nationally. I am most appreciative of the leadership that he has provided. He has made an impact in this region and the Western Cape is not regarded as one of the better managed regions for nothing.
Let us wish him well in his new position and continue the efforts that he made in the region to bring about a better life for all. I am personally grateful for what he has meant for Department of Correctional Services and want to assure him that he would always be one of the correctional services family.
Good luck to all of you and do have a safe journey home.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
26 April 2005
Source: Department of Correctional Services (http://www.dcs.gov.za)
Source: Department of Correctional Services
Title: Balfour: George Management Area
Address by the Minister of Correctional Services, Mr BMN Balfour, MP, to members of the George Management Area
Programme Director
Area Commissioner, Mr Breakfast
Heads of George, Mossel Bay, Knysna and Uniondale Correctional Centres
Management and Members of the Centres
At the end of this week it would be one year since the President called me in to his office to inform me that I would be filling the portfolio of Minister of Correctional Services.
At the time I had no idea what was awaiting me. I come from a Ministry where I had a budget that was smaller than your budget for the George Management Area to a budget in excess of nine billion rand. Accepting the position was accepting a huge responsibility not only for one of the biggest departmental budgets in government but also for more than 220 000 people.
Two weeks ago in Parliament when delivering my Budget Vote speech, I said that since being in Correctional Services, I have developed two passions. My first passion is you – the staff members of Correctional Services, and that is why I would go to any lengths to get the opportunity to personally meet as many of you as possible. My other passion is the inmates that we care for. Together, we make up the correctional services family, and I am determined that in the remaining four years of my term of office, we will continue building a Correctional Services Department that truly belongs to all South Africans.
This has been a most eventful year for me. It is a year that has had its frustrations at times. It has had its negatives but more importantly, it was a year in which I have come to respect and admire the role that you as correctional officials play within the criminal justice system. Your work is arguably the most under-valued in the public service. Very little appreciation is shown by the public for the excellent and thankless work that you do. Even government is still not recognising the full value of what you do on a daily basis.
As I visit correctional centres throughout the country, I see what you have to contend with; I recognise the pressures and strains that you have to face; and I increasingly appreciate the wonderful efforts that I witness as you go about carrying out your mandate of caring for inmates in a safe and secure environment.
I have not had much of an opportunity to visit your various correctional centres. I am going to make a point of visiting as many of your centres as possible during the time that I am your Minister because I want to share in your experiences and frustrations because your experiences and frustrations are also mine.
I have had the chance to get to know your Area Commissioner relatively well. He is a good man. He has shown that he leads an excellent team. The huge distances that he has to travel to each centre will take its toll on a lesser man but he believes that as your manager, he must lead from the front. He is my type of person. I want to dirty my hands by being involved in your daily work. I want to know what managers are doing in their offices and in meetings. I want to know what the custodial officials at the entrance gates do. I want to know what you do in your various sections. I want to know what you do in the workshops, in community corrections, during exercise times of inmates, during meal times and over weekends.
I do not want to know these things because I want to spy on you. No, I do it so that I can have an understanding of your daily lives while at work.
The Area Commissioner was saying to me that the George Management Area has one of the best records in ensuring that escapes are kept to a minimum. You apparently have not had a single escape over the last four years. That is great! I just hope that you can maintain such an excellent record.
What is important is that you continue building a team of committed correctional officials. I have a very simple approach to life. You get out of life what you make of it. In the same way, you get out of your career what you make of it. When the President told me that I was going to be your Minister, I could have told him: “Thank you chief, but I do not want the job.”
In much the same way, you are not forced to be a correctional official. You chose this career on your own. Nobody forced you to work for Correctional Services. As such, you must make it work for yourself. If you wake up every morning and go to work miserable and unhappy, then you are the creator of your own unhappiness and misery. You cannot blame anyone else for it. If the Area Commissioner is not happy with his correctional centres, he can go to the Commissioner and say, thank you, but I am out of here. You can do the same instead of complaining every day about your situation to anyone who cares to listen to you.
I know that your conditions of employment are not the best. I am fully aware that virtually all of you, as with any other person, believe that you should be paid better salaries. I agree with you. But that does not mean that you must now neglect your duties because you believe you are being underpaid. Remember, you made a choice to come here.
Tomorrow, we celebrate Freedom Day. It is a day that many of us thought would never come in our lifetime. Who would have thought in the 80s and early 90s that the African National Congress would be in power in 1994 and that Apartheid would collapse. We knew freedom would come but we did not know how soon.
In much the same way, we know that your service conditions must improve. Government is acutely aware that we need to be giving our correctional officials a better deal. But government also knows that we must act responsibly. There are many priorities that we must contend with. I visited some of the communities in George yesterday. There is much to do to give our people the shared better life that we speak of. We have high rates of unemployment and poverty. Our people need houses, jobs, schools. Our youth need opportunities. Our freedom can only be complete once South Africa truly belongs to all in the sense that the needs of every citizen are catered for.
But like freedom, it will not come overnight. Your conditions must and will improve but it will not come overnight. I therefore want to appeal to you to continue strengthening my hand by the type of services that you deliver. Continue ensuring that your centres are well-managed; that you carry out your duties with commitment, pride and humility; and that you remain the committed correctional official that you envisaged you would be when you applied for the job.
There are many issues that must be addressed and I have committed myself publicly on many occasions to do this. I know that many of you are unhappy that we have to cut on the huge amounts of money that we spend on overtime. The introduction of the seven-day week was no longer something that we could postpone. Like the coming of freedom, it was inevitable that we had to introduce it. We were not using public funds in the best way possible but by introducing it, it does not mean that we want to take food off from your family’s table. It certainly creates the possibility for us to employ more officials but it also allows us to improve the ratio of officials to inmates.
There are other matters such as medical aid, overcrowding, upward mobility that some of you know as promotion, housing, and so forth, that are of concern to you. I want to again stress that I am mindful of these matters and that I am continuously working towards a situation where my officials are not treated differently to their counterparts in the criminal justice system.
By now, you should all be familiar with the White Paper on Corrections in South Africa. Some of your centres might be designated centres of excellence. But every centre should be a centre of excellence. It is what you do about it that would determine whether there are standards of excellence at your centre or not. George Correctional Centre is not an official centre of excellence but the officials here have turned it into one. All of you can do the same whether it be Mossel Bay, Knysna, Uniondale or George. It depends on your commitment to giving effect to the ideals of the White Paper. Let it become a living document for all of us.
By now you are also aware that the department has entered into an agreement with Popcru. I want to stress here that the Union has confirmed its commitment to correctional services being an essential service. I do not think that this is matter has been a major problem in this Management Area, but I want to emphasise that discipline will remain the key to good order in our correctional services. I expect all correctional officials to wear their insignia with their uniforms. I expect people to perform their duties in line with our mandate. I expect you to respect your management. I expect management to respect those under their supervision. I expect safety and security to be non-negotiable. I expect you to report for duty when you should be doing so. I expect us to treat inmates humanely.
I do not expect corruption and collusion with inmates. I do not expect ill-discipline. I do not expect abuse of power and authority. I do not expect neglect of duties.
If we understand each other on these basics, we would have a wonderful working relationship. We would start winning the trust and respect of the public. We would start convincing the Treasury and Cabinet that correctional officials deserve better attention. But much of it depends on those who I regard as my passion – you, the correctional officials at the coalface of the work that you do.
Do let us join hands, and together, build the correctional system that we all desire.
You again have my assurance that I will continue striving for the best for you. I will also continue dropping in at your centres, sometimes without announcing my visits. This is not to catch you unawares but to share in the daily work that you do.
I must also mention that very soon our Regional Commissioner, Bongani Gxilishe, will no longer be with Correctional Services. He has been deployed to another department to continue with the work of government. In the time that he has been with us, he has served us well both in the region and nationally. I am most appreciative of the leadership that he has provided. He has made an impact in this region and the Western Cape is not regarded as one of the better managed regions for nothing.
Let us wish him well in his new position and continue the efforts that he made in the region to bring about a better life for all. I am personally grateful for what he has meant for Department of Correctional Services and want to assure him that he would always be one of the correctional services family.
Good luck to all of you and do have a safe journey home.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
26 April 2005
Source: Department of Correctional Services (http://www.dcs.gov.za)
Advertisement
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE SAVE THIS ARTICLE FEEDBACK
To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here
