New facility to equip inmates with skills

Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola has officially opened a newly built Correctional Centre in Tzaneen.

The state-of-the-art facility is classified as a medium centre, incarcerating offenders serving sentences up to 15 years.

According to Lamola, the facility will be in line with standards and norms of the department of correctional services and will enable the department to fulfil its mandate of safely securing and accommodating inmates.

The old facility housed 68 inmates, while the new facility has the capacity to incarcerate 500 inmates, though they presently have 145 inmates.

“We are being confronted with the need to develop our infrastructure in ter ms of correctional centres of this nature. This is due to the high levels of crime in the country,” said Lamola.

“What is critically clear is that the construction of new facilities will never outpace the demand for these centres as the pace of conviction is far greater than the pace of building infrastructure.”

He said the Tzaneen Correctional Centre is one of 16 newgeneration correctional centres in the country.

Lamola said there were plans for the construction of staff facilities that will house officials working at the centre.

Deputy Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Noxolo Kiviet assured Lamola that her department would fast-track the process. Lamola said new-generation correctional centres were aimed at facilitating skills transfer to the inmates to enable their effective rehabilitation.

“Experience has taught us that inmates must acquire skills that will equip them for the future outside our centres. These new generation of correctional centres equip inmates with skills in high demand,” he said.

Programmes offered at the correctional centre include adult education training from Level 1 to 4, technical and vocational education and training college programmes such as engineering studies from N1 to N3, skills training programmes, woodwork, electrical, welding, basic computer skills, motor or diesel mechanics, fruit and vegetable production, farm business management and pest control.

Lamola told the mayor of Tzaneen that the inmates are labour that is available at the disposal of the municipality, including the provincial department of public works.