The South African government on Monday pledged to address prison overcrowding which is ranked the most serious in Africa.

South African prisons hold approximately 160,000 inmates, the ninth highest prison population in the world, according to Correctional Services Minister Sbu Ndebele.

The government has taken the issue as a priority, he told a meeting with senior leadership of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union and the Public Servants Association of SA in Pretoria.

Among the inmates, at least 30 percent were awaiting trial.

"That our offender population has remained constant, whether you remove pass laws, group areas, or apartheid laws, should make us search more urgently for answers to the high prison population in South Africa," the minister said.

South African prisons are notorious for gang-related violence that is often sparked by overcrowding and poor management.

In late January, at least ten inmates were injured in a riot involving prison gangs, the second gang fight in the same prison in a week in the Pollsmoor Prison in the Western Cape Province.

An inmate was seriouls injured with 21 stab wounds in the fight that broke out in the Pollsmoor Prison in the Western Cape Province, the Department of Correctional Services said.

Two other prisons -- the St Albans Prison in Port Elizabeth, the Eastern Cape Province, and Groenpunt Prison in the Free State - - also witnessed similar prison violence last month.

In a gang-related fight at St Albans Prison, three prisoners were killed and scores injured.

The South African government will not tolerate prison riots, Ndebele said earlier.

"Whilst the department of correctional services is fully committed to the humane treatment of every detainee, acts of riots by inmates at correctional centers are not acceptable and will be dealt with firmly," he said.