Mti must 'please explain'

2006-03-28 15:49

Cape Town - Correctional services national commissioner Linda Mti has been called on by MPs to explain the "re-channelling" of funds meant for four new prisons.

Mti will appear before the national assembly's correctional services committee on Wednesday, committee chair Dennis Bloem said on Tuesday.

The committee wanted to establish whether "it is true that the funds were re-channelled to other things".

The committee was expecting Mti to give a detailed report on the progress made with the building programme - launched in 2002 - and when the first inmates could be expected to be moved into the new prisons, Bloem said.

The committee was very concerned about overcrowding in prisons around the country, and had thought the four new prisons would alleviate this problem, because they were designed to provide 12 000 additional beds, Bloem said.

Die Burger newspaper reported on Tuesday that the department had complained the about R1.2bn allocated for four new prisons "is not enough even to begin building them".

However, it recently invited tenders for 6 000 television sets - at R26 500 a set - access control systems to the value of R148.2m and fences at R6.6m each.

Correctional services spokesperson Manelisi Wolela had already admitted that about R438m of the R1.2bn had been "re-channelled" last year to build fences with motion detectors for the 66 existing prisons.

Parliament and the Treasury were not informed, because the money was shifted from one infrastructure project to another, which was not illegal, the report said.

A tender of R148m was awarded in April last year to Sondolo IT to install access control systems in prisons.

Another tender of R159m was recently awarded for installing 6 000 TV sets in prisons. This works out at about R26 500 per set.

The four new prisons - in Kimberley, Leeukop, Nigel and Klerksdorp - were planned in 2002 and should have been completed this year.

- SAPA