Sanctions? Not so fast — Redi Tlhabi on what the US bill really means for South Africa
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The Weekend Wrap What Trump's tariffs mean for SA, and when the Gaza genocide became undeniable — all in the week's wrap.
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Daily Maverick
2 days ago
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Breaking the crime cycle — Bail Fund could ease prison overcrowding
South Africa's prisons are overcrowded by 53%, with remand detainees accounting for almost a third of those incarcerated. While legislative efforts to reduce overcrowding have been ineffective, the Bail Fund could help those who can't afford to pay their bail. Correctional Services Minister Dr Pieter Groenewald has said remand detainees have a direct bearing on prisons' bed capacity, which is one of several factors contributing to prison overcrowding. There are just 107,000 beds in South African prisons, but about 166,000 inmates are housed in the country's 243 correctional centres, resulting in a 53% overcrowding rate. This negatively affects safety and security, gang violence, and the success of rehabilitation programmes. In March this year, Daily Maverick's Caryn Dolley reported that cellphones, alcohol, smoking pipes, drugs and even tattoo machines are passing through South Africa's overcrowded prisons as inmates and corrupt officials collude to form a key part of organised crime networks. Groenewald, speaking during the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) budget vote in July, said there were 107,067 bed spaces available, currently occupied by 104,550 sentenced inmates. There are almost 60,000 remand detainees (those awaiting trial or sentencing), pushing the number of beds needed to around 166,000. The minister stressed that remand detainees significantly contributed to overcrowding, noting that the department had to admit all court-referred persons, regardless of capacity. Currently, 2,530 remand detainees remained in custody solely because they could not afford bail of R1,000 or less, despite having been granted bail by courts. Keeping each of these individuals in custody costs the taxpayer R463 per person per day. Prison overcrowding and high recidivism rates are linked, creating a dangerous cycle. Overcrowded facilities make it impossible to provide adequate living conditions and effective rehabilitation programmes. Without effective rehabilitation, ex-prisoners are more likely to reoffend upon release, which contributes to more overcrowding when they re-enter the prison system. Legal strategies fail to curb overcrowding Another impediment to overcrowding, as heard by the parliamentary correctional services committee on Friday, 25 July, was the low success rate of legislation targeted at reducing overcrowding in correctional facilities around the country. The DCS briefed the committee on the use of Section 49G of the Correctional Services Act (CSA) and Section 62F of the Criminal Procedures Act (CPA) applications. Both sections aim to reduce overcrowding in correctional facilities. Section 49G says a remand detainee may not be detained for more than two years without the matter being brought to the attention of the court. The head of the remand centre must refer the case to the court at least three months before the two-year detention period lapses. If the detainee remains in custody following the initial review, further submissions to the court must be made on an annual basis. Section 62F of the CPA allows courts to impose additional bail conditions, such as placing an accused person under probation or correctional supervision, rather than in remand. Both sections have done little to alleviate overcrowding. The committee heard that Section 62F was underused while the success rate for the 12,283 Section 49G applications in 2022/23 was 1.25% nationally, with the Eastern Cape and Western Cape both indicating a 0% success rate. 'In terms of the outcomes of Section 49G application, especially relating to the Eastern Cape, it's a very serious concern. The committee will raise this with the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development that deals with referrals,' said correctional services committee chairperson Kgomotso Ramolobeng. Efforts at solutions The Bail Fund could offer a viable solution to easing overcrowding in correctional facilities. The fund aims to address the injustice faced by remand detainees who cannot afford bail amounts under R1,000 by providing financial assistance. The fund will rely solely on private funding. A pilot project in the Western Cape is being developed to test its feasibility, with eligibility criteria excluding individuals accused of serious crimes such as gender-based violence (GBV). Courts will determine suitability, ensuring beneficiaries do not pose a public risk, have a fixed address and will comply with bail conditions. The fund is led by the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (Jics) with support from the Bertha Foundation and other stakeholders. It has produced a feasibility study and raised roughly half of the required pilot money through philanthropy. A trust has been formed to oversee the fund. The next stages are to secure additional funding, designate trustees and finalise eligibility guidelines. Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Service (Jics) inspecting Judge Edwin Cameron has described the more than 2,500 remand detainees who remain in prison because they can't afford bail as 'prisoners of poverty'. He said it was a grave injustice which significantly contributed to South Africa's prison overcrowding problem. Parliamentary committee chairperson Ms Kgomotso Anthea Ramolobeng indicated that committee members agreed that much work needed to be done on the project, including an extensive public participation process to establish whether communities would be in favour of such a fund. 'The committee encouraged Jics to continue with its groundwork on the project with other stakeholders like the South African Police Service and the NPA. It is important to thoroughly engage communities, as offenders on bail will have to go back to families and communities. 'The committee will monitor this space and engage Jics and other stakeholders once it has sight of a more comprehensive plan,' she said. Foreign nationals 'extra burden' To alleviate overcrowding in correctional facilities, Groenewald wants to deport foreign prisoners. More than 12,000 foreign prisoners make up 19% of the remand population, which the minister says contributes to overcrowding. Another about 12,000 are serving sentences, who make up just over 12% of sentenced prisoners. During his budget speech, Groenewald emphasised: 'The South African taxpayer foots the bill for just over 24,000 foreign nationals. Calculated at R463 per day, this results in an expense of R11,112,000 per day. We are currently exploring various solutions, including diplomatic approaches.' He said bilateral engagements with South African Development Community countries to deport offenders who were foreign nationals aimed to ease overcrowding in correctional facilities. The process is already under way, with the Protocol on the Management of Foreign Nationals: Remand Detainees and Persons Detained for Deportation signed by Correctional Services, SAPS, and the Department of Home Affairs. According to the minister, a process is under way to amend the Criminal Procedure Act to enable the deportation of offenders who were foreign nationals. DM
Daily Maverick
3 days ago
- Daily Maverick
Call for urgent SA pesticide action plan to protect farm workers — and consumers
NGOs report limited resources for consumer education and pesticide testing, which they believe hinders effective enforcement of pesticide limits. They also perceive a governmental reluctance to implement significant changes. The African Centre for Biodiversity (Acbio) released a compilation of the past two decades of research on pesticide use in South Africa on 21 July 2025, in the form of a searchable and downloadable database. The centre hopes this will help with advocacy for policy change and the banning of certain pesticides. The aim is to help 'collective efforts to push the government to prioritise the urgent complete overhaul of the regulatory framework governing the use of pesticides, ensuring its rigorous implementation and heeding the persistent calls for the banning of the most hazardous chemicals and the phase-out of others'. Executive director of the African Centre for Biodiversity Mariam Mayet said it probably took about six researchers four to five months to complete the database, along with computer science specialists and assistance from artificial intelligence. In an interview with Daily Maverick, Mayet said, 'The first thing we had to do was to find all the research papers over a period of two decades. We decided to look at what happened over 20 years. And that took a long time, because we had to find, firstly, all the peer review journal articles, then any other research reports and documents that were put together by researchers and civil society over the last 20 years'. Mayet said they interviewed the researchers to understand what impact the papers had and if the government responded to the findings, although some were in intergovernmental discussions. Mayet pointed out that the government was hard to pin down for engagement on agro-toxins. 'We had to go and interview a lot of these researchers who had participated in intergovernmental bodies to find out the extent to which they … made submissions that may not have been in the public domain… But then also, we did follow-ups with every researcher or institution to find out from them what happened after they published the research. 'Did they bring this to the attention of the government? What were the steps that the government took, if at all? Because the one frustration we've been having for the last 20 years or more is just complete intransigence on the part of the state. 'You know, Act 36 was passed at the time when King George VI was the head of state of South Africa … [nearly] 80 years ago,' Mayet said. The Act she is referring to is the Act 36 of 1947, known as the Fertilisers, Farm Feeds, Seeds and Remedies Act, which regulates the registration and sale of fertilisers, farm feeds, agricultural remedies and stock remedies. Its key provisions include registration, regulation and appointment of officials. Mayet is part of a large group of activists who have been calling for the laws to be updated and for other measures to be implemented to protect vulnerable groups such as farmworkers from exposure, which can lead to illnesses ranging from skin irritation and respiratory illnesses, and have been linked to cancer. Mayet says that the long-term risk to all South African citizens who are not in the agricultural space is exposure through food that has pesticides, and from water sources. This alarm has been sounded for more than two decades and is part of the reason why Acbio created the database. 'They also made a 2010 policy where they outlined the objective of the government to phase out 116 highly hazardous pesticides and reform the legislation. Nothing happened after that, and nothing happens no matter how much you knock at the door of the registrar. 'So, the frustration on the part of the researchers also had to be captured and recorded, and to illustrate the extent of the research actually published in the country and to put it all in one place and then to categorise it accordingly so that people could easily research it and then also provide a list of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) that are still in use in South Africa and banned in the EU,' Mayet said. '…it's just a resource that we put in the public domain that we hope to be a living document. We also email the compendium to every researcher to ask them if they have any other research in the offing that they would like to bring to our attention so that we may upload it. We would like this to be a living document,' Mayet said. Acbio recommended that SA urgently needed to develop a comprehensive pesticide action plan, which should 'be aligned with international best practices, phase out or ban the most hazardous pesticides and outline a clear roadmap for supporting farmers to transition out of industrial chemical-based food, fibre, and crop production systems to systems that are grounded in agroecological principles, social justice, equity and job creation.' Terbufos In June, the South African government officially banned the importation and use of Terbufos, commonly known as Halephirimi. This came after children died from food poisoning in Soweto last year. These deaths were linked to food contaminated with the toxic pesticide, classified as an organophosphate. This came after an investigation by the inter-ministerial committee on food-borne illnesses, which focused on the dangers of organophosphate pesticides. This unfortunate incident brought the dangers of pesticides to the public's attention. Mayet said this showed the significance of activism and consumer knowledge. 'I think that the Terbufos case was the one case that put the issue of pesticides on the national agenda for the first time, and I think that it only did that because a lot of us made such a big issue of it. 'You would remember that the initial responses were very much to blame spaza shops, to underplay it, not to blame it on pesticides, but on food contamination. 'It's because we made a huge big issue of the fact that it was a harmful chemical, an HHP, a 1A highly toxic chemical, and that we also had a pesticide tribunal, people's tribunal; we had judges giving evidence to the portfolio committee,' said Mayet. Funding Although Mayet acknowledges the steps taken so far to educate people on food safety after the death of children in Soweto, she says education on the extent of pesticide exposure people face daily is lacking. Organisations such as Acbio do some of that work, but she says funding is limited, therefore limiting advocacy efforts on both consumer education and policy lobbying. 'I do believe that there's very little public awareness of the extent to which, first, that there are pesticides in the food that we're consuming, and that there's no testing by the government of food that South Africans are consuming.' The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Acbio and Women on Farms have an upcoming documentary after testing food products they bought from a supermarket in South Africa for pesticides. 'They all exceeded the maximum residue level[s] set by our government. So, our food is laden with agrochemicals. The public has no idea.' Mayet says the solution is a massive consumer campaign, campaigning for the labelling of foods, and forcing the government to test and inform the public on what pesticides are in foods. 'It does beg for a consumer campaign, but we don't have strong consumer civil society groups in the country ready to take up this issue. So, we can't do it because we're too small, and we don't have enough resources. It's a time of tightening of belts, and a lot of European donors are cutting back.' In a written response to Daily Maverick, the Department of Agriculture said it participated in several multi-stakeholder forums that dealt with the broader issues of chemical management. The department noted that 'the structures that are in place are not sufficient to deal with challenges of unsafe use of pesticides in the country'. Asked what it took to ban a pesticide, the department said: 'The department's mandate is to ensure that farmers and the public have access to effective and safe pesticides. The ban is only considered when there is evidence that the risk associated with the pesticide is not manageable. Thus, the department will institute the ban when there is evidence that the costs of using the particular pesticides far exceed the benefits.' DM
