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Minister of Correctional Services, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, has announced the holding of public hearings on the proposed name changes to eleven correctional facilities. In a full-colour advert in the Sunday Times, the Minister invites members of the public to attend the hearings and provide oral submissions on the proposed name changes. The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that this undertaking is a waste of public funds that could be better spent addressing the many serious and urgent problems that correctional facilities are experiencing.

Does the Minister really believe that changing the names of these facilities is a more urgent priority than finding ways to address problems such as overcrowding, prison gangs, ongoing corruption, poor compliance with laws and policy, and the non-alignment of the department’s budget with its strategic objectives? The DA supports the renaming of places with offensive or insensitive names. However, none of the eleven facilities identified by the Minister for renaming can be described as having offensive or insensitive names; in fact, these names merely describe the physical location of the facilities in question.

The Minister should reconsider her priorities and perhaps re-acquaint herself with the primary mandate of her department, which is to rehabilitate offenders and provide them with development opportunities that offer an alternative to a life of crime. This is the kind of social responsibility that will make a difference in the fight against crime, not superficial tokenism that does nothing to address the very real challenges facing her department. I shall be writing a letter to the Minister asking her to reconsider this course of action.