/ 28 March 2008

MPs attack privatised prison plans

A fight is brewing between the Correctional Services Department and Parliament over the privatisation of five new multimillion-rand prisons.

Parliament’s correctional services committee, led by African National Congress MP Dennis Bloem, recently threatened to dissociate itself from the project if the department failed to explain why it could not manage the prisons itself.

The committee wants to know why the department opted for the public-private partnership (PPP) procurement model after Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour previously slammed the two existing PPP prisons in Parliament as too costly.

Prisons commissioner Vernie Petersen contradicted Balfour, telling Parliament’s correctional services committee last month that the PPP model is cheaper and that the private sector runs prisons more efficiently than the state.

Petersen and representatives of the National Treasury, the Correctional Services Department and the Department of Public Works were grilled by parliamentary committee members who were unhappy about privatisation and delays in prison construction since 2002.

The construction of eight new-generation prisons has been ”announced” repeatedly by President Thabo Mbeki in State of the Nation speeches since 2002. However, the first brick was laid only last year in Kimberley, after the department awarded Grinaker-LTA the R810-million contract to build the first of eight 3 000-bed facilities.

The department will operate the Kimberley prison.

Prisons in Paarl, Port Shepstone, East London, Nigel and Klerksdorp are still on the radar, while suitable ground could not be found in Polokwane and the proposed site of a new prison at Leeuwkop in Midrand failed an environmental impact assessment.

At the committee hearing, Bloem said: ”It is a very worrying issue that we are still sitting with this thing — We want to tell the voters out there that we as a portfolio committee have really fulfilled our mandate … But now we are sitting with one prison [under construction in Kimberley].”

It was alleged in 2006 that the department, under former prisons boss Linda Mti, spent funds intended for prison construction on massive security contracts. The department has denied this, but the contracts are being probed by the Special Investigating Unit.

In addition, the Treasury suspended funds from the department’s capital works programme because of delays in prison construction.

The Treasury, the Department of Public Works and an independent transaction adviser assisted the Department of Correctional Services in researching the pros and cons of privatising the five new prisons to be completed by 2010.

The department’s deputy chief for facilities, Robert van Anraad, said the PPP model was considered best in terms of value for money, risk transfer and affordability. The facilities would be fully operated by private contractors and returned to the department ”in good condition” after 25 years.

The Mail & Guardian reported last year that the department had advertised for qualifications for the design, construction, financing and operation of the five new prisons.

The sifting of submissions is under way and, according to Petersen, successful bidders should know by the end of April when to submit their requests for proposal documents.

But a determined portfolio committee was not satisfied by Petersen’s explanations.

ANC MP Samson Mahote said there was general unhappiness about the rising costs of the PPP prisons in Louis Trichardt and Bloemfontein, while his party colleague, Cindy Chikunga, complained that the prisons had not relieved overcrowding.

It was agreed that the committee would be briefed in a closed session on the costing of the PPP model.