The Outsourcing of Catering in South African Prisons Provides Food for Thought
The South African Department of Correctional Services (DCS) recently raised eyebrows after media reports highlighted that the National Commissioner Tom Monyane, who was appointed in May this year, intends to defend the re-awarding of a tender to Bosasa Operations in a court case brought by a competitor, Royal Sechaba.
Tizina Ramagaga. Junior Researcher. Crime and Justice Programme, ISS Pretoria
The South African Department of Correctional Services (DCS) recently raised eyebrows after media reports highlighted that the National Commissioner Tom Monyane, who was appointed in May this year, intends to defend the re-awarding of a tender to Bosasa Operations in a court case brought by a competitor, Royal Sechaba.
Bosasa, as was widely reported, is being investigated after the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) implicated senior departmental officials in tender irregularities. The contract was re-warded to Bosasa in January 2009. Royal Sechaba, a catering company that was disqualified for apparently failing to submit all the forms required for the bidding process, are accusing the Department of tampering with the process in order to ensure that the contract, which is estimated to be worth R1 billion for catering services in 31 public prisons, is awarded to Bosasa Operations.
After news of the Department’s court challenge was reported in the Mail & Guardian on 8 October, the Department attempted to explain itself saying that the Commissioner was simply “defending its interests” against the court challenge by Royal Sechaba, which aimed to halt the awarding of the contract to Bosasa until investigations were concluded. The DCS’ response raises a number of questions, particularly following media reports that it was acting against a legal opinion on which it had already spent taxpayers’ money. Highly regarded Advocate Wim Trengrove SC argued in his opinion to the Department that it should not defend the court challenge.
By ignoring the legal opinion, the Department appears to be acting contrary to its efforts to improve its record in dealing with corruption. Why did the Department award a tender to a company that the SIU was investigating for involvement in corruption? Last year the former Deputy National Commissioner, Teboho Motseki admitted to the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services that ‘….none of the issues concerning the SIU investigation and report…….were taken into consideration when the decision was made to award the contract to that particular supplier. The outcome of the investigation was another matter and might have a bearing on whether a contract would be awarded to that company in future.’ Surely if a company is being investigated for corruption, the public entity should wait for the outcome before awarding another massive contract to that company.
But there is a more fundamental question: why is catering in public prisons being outsourced at all? The outsourcing of government services can be simply defined as the contracting of private service providers to provide skills or expertise required for public functions where these are not available within government.
In 2009 the DCS justified the outsourcing of catering to a private company before the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services by stating that it did not have the infrastructure or facilities to provide meals to overcrowded prisons. The DCS claim is curious since Bosasa was apparently using prison infrastructure and facilities to prepare meals. In addition, the claim that the DCS, “did not have access to suitable training programmes for staff to manage the kitchens” seems improbable given the amount of money being used to outsource the function. The presentation revealed that the costs for outsourcing catering services to the Department amounted to R839.4 million for the 2008/ 2009 financial year.
Lukas Muntingh from the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative argues that the Department’s inability to provide meals to all offenders is a consequence of maladministration and mismanagement of stock control. Catering services are part of the Department’s core business. If these services are to be outsourced that should be a temporary measure to allow the Department time to improve its management systems. In fact, section 3 of the Correctional Services Act no. 111 of 1998 requires the Department to be self-sufficient. Muntingh argues that there should be a limit to the amount spent on outsourcing catering. Instead, the department needs to address the underlying reasons why the services were outsourced in the first place.
The Department’s court challenge seems illogical and wasteful when it is not finding ways to solve issues around lack of internal capacity to feed inmates. Outsourcing should not be a means to feed the pockets of those in private business but rather used as a temporary solution, while the Department builds its capacity to fulfill its core functions as efficiently as possible. Given the longstanding allegations of corruption against the Department and Bosasa and in light of the statements released by the Special Investigating Unit, this matter deserves much greater scrutiny.
