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Correctional Services Minister Dr. Pieter Groenewald opens a bakery at Westville Prison
Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald says his department is moving ahead with the roll-out of bakeries across its facilities. He says this will save the department billions of rands in outsourcing fees.
Minister of Correctional Services Dr Pieter Groenewald opened a newly established bakery at the Durban Westvile Management Area in KwaZulu-Natal aimed at saving millions of rands for the department. #SABCNEWS pic.twitter.com/pW869K9qJy
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So far 13 bakeries have been introduced in prisons.
Dr. Groenewald was at the Westville Prison in Durban to open one of the bakeries.
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Fifty inmates are working shifts, producing over 3 800 loaves a day. The facility produces bread at a cost of R8 a loaf, compared to R23 they pay service providers.
Groenewald says the bakeries will be self-sustainable and will depend less on state funding.
“This bakery will be R3 million annually for the taxpayer. If you add all the other activities, for self-sufficiency, the previous year, we have saved the taxpayers about half a billion rand. We’ll be producing our own vegetables. We have spike trees and abattoirs. I want to see that we enhance that because we must remember that the budget of correctional services was cut by R11.7 billion over the previous 5 years,” he adds.
Inmate, Mlindeni Xaba is happy to be part of the team working in the bakery. He says he is thankful to the officials that assisted them to choose better, now he will be able to open his business once released from prison to support his family.
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