Wyndham Hartley
22 July 2008
Cape Town — Suspensions of hundreds of prisons officials in the past three years have cost the correctional services department almost R60m, Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour said .
In a written reply to a parliamentary question from Democratic Alliance MP James Selfe yesterday, Balfour said there were as at April this year 103 prisons officials serving "precautionary" suspensions on full pay. Many of them have been on suspension for almost three years, thus drawing their salaries but doing no work.
Correctional services has rarely been far from the headlines, especially since the findings of the Jali commission which found widespread corruption in the department.
It has also earned the ire of the auditor-general, getting frequent qualified audit reports.
Balfour said in 2005-06 precautionary suspensions cost R34m; in 2006-07 they cost R9,8m, and in the 2007-08 financial year R15m .
At Baviaanspoort prison one official has been suspended for 24 months, at Leeuwkop three officials have been suspended for between 25 and 35 months, and among the suspensions in Pretoria are nine officials who have had all pay and no work for between 20 and 33 months.
Balfour gave no indication as to why the suspensions have taken so long to resolve.
Selfe said: "This situation is totally unacceptable. At a time when we should be using all our resources (to) fight crime, the department wastes money on paying officials for not doing any work. These cases must be dealt with immediately."
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