A strategy to prevent escapes has been developed, the Department of Correctional Services has informed parliament.
A portfolio committee convened in Cape Town on Tuesday to hear the department’s presentation on the corrective action taken in response to the public protector’s reports regarding Thabo Bester’s escape.
The escape of Yanga Wayithi, a 35-year-old inmate, from Pollsmoor Correctional Centre marred the department’s presentation.
The public protector’s report, published in 2024, claims that department officials were too slow to react to Bester’s escape after he was convicted of rape and murder.
According to public protector advocate Kholeka Gcaleka, this caused several corrective actions targeting the department’s leadership to be postponed.
These included developing procedures for handling accusations of corruption and a strategy to stop escapes.
The department highlighted its plans, including security, anti-corruption, anti-fraud, and whistleblowing.
Action plan sent to public protector
Makgothi Thobakgale, the commissioner of Correctional Services, told the portfolio committee that an action plan had been created and sent to the Office of the Public Protector.
“What we needed to do was to develop an escape prevention strategy, which we have done,” said Thobakgale.
“We have duly complied with the deadlines of December 31, 2024, and January 31, 2025, that the public protector had given us.”
The department also disclosed that prisoners come up with creative ways to escape, and they change with every jail break.
“The action plan we need is to establish an intelligence-driven correctional service to fight non-compliance and security breaches. Anti-corruption and fraud policies were developed and approved,” he said.
Thobakgale noted that some inmates pretend to be whistleblowers in order to be moved to the facility of their choice.
“When we get there, we discover that this offender was actually trying to play the system by utilising whatever is in the media as a cover to say they have information about certain cases; that is why it is important to mention this.”
Privatisation of prisons
The committee expressed dissatisfaction over the presentation’s lack of detail and its sounding like a hastily completed primary school project.
Carl Niehaus, an EFF MP, informed the department that the privatisation of prisons is partially to blame for Bester’s highly publicised prison escape.
According to Niehaus, he is not persuaded by the implementations the department submitted to the committee.
“Is there an intention for the department to continue with privatisation? Will the department continue to extend the contract with G4S?” he asked.
“I am very concerned that we continue with the privatisation project. I did not hear anything in the presentation that there is an intention to bring an end to the privatisation of some of the correctional services institutions.”
In May 2022, Bester broke out of the Mangaung Correctional Centre. He was cornered in Kenya and returned to South Africa to face trial a year later.
