Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele has congratulated Correctional Official, Dennis Williams, on being named one of the country’s top public servants.
Williams, employed as Community Liaison Officer at the Department of Correctional Services Pietermaritzburg Community Corrections Office in KwaZulu-Natal, scooped second prize in the category Best Overall Public Servant of the Year, at the inaugural National Batho Pele Excellence Awards.
The Pietermaritzburg Community Corrections Office was also placed third in the Batho Pele creative/innovator of the year category, for its innovative use of education as a tool for rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders.
According to the department, Williams is no stranger to excellence.
“He has featured on eTV’s South African Heroes for his sterling work. His innovation includes creating employment opportunities for ex-offenders, motivational talks on crime prevention at schools, school safety programmes, utilising ex-offenders as motivational speakers at schools and community forums, championing poverty alleviation programmes amongst various communities in and around Pietermaritzburg, promoting DCS rehabilitation and reintegration programmes and serving 18 task teams and committees,” said the department.
The minister said the achievement would raise the profile of correctional officials.
“On behalf of the Correctional Services family, we want to congratulate Dennis Williams for his sterling performance at the National Batho Pele Excellence Awards. The Pietermaritzburg Community Corrections Office has also made us extremely proud.
“We declared 2013 as ‘The Year of the Correctional Official’. Indeed, such achievements raise the status, and profile, of the correctional official and confirms that corrections is an honourable, and most noble, profession,” said Ndebele. – SAnews.gov.za
