THE Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) says calls for justice and correctional services minister Ronald Lamola to resign over the department’s poor handling of the Thabo Bester saga is an act of “shifting the blame”.
The union repeated its call for private prisons contracts to be scrapped.
Union president Zizamele Cebekhulu-Makhaza was speaking during a round-table discussion on Tuesday about Bester’s escape from Mangaung Correctional Centre, a privately run prison, last year. Bester was allegedly helped by officials from the maximum facility.
Bester was arrested at the Easter weekend, alongside girlfriend Dr Nandipha Magudumana, in Tanzania and was brought back to the country in a chartered plane last week.
He is now being held at Kgosi Mampuru prison.
Cebekhulu-Makhaza on Wednesday provided an overview of the union’s visit to the facility, including the treatment its members were subjected to by security company G4S.
“We went there to find out what really happened. We had members who are G4S [employees] and we also wanted to go to get an understanding of their feelings [regarding the escape].
“We got information from them that the Bester escape took place while some of them were not at work but with others knowing what was happening who were kept in abeyance by authorities. It was something that was well planned,” he said.
Cebekhulu-Makhaza confirmed reports that Bester received preferential treatment while serving his sentence, including an incident that saw Bester address a sham media event from prison in 2018.
Last month, a video emerged showing Bester laughing uncontrollably from his prison cell and dressed in a suit while live-streaming the launch of the bogus company 21st Century Media that he set up with businesswoman Phumudzo Thenga, who was allegedly also hoodwinked by him.
Cebekhulu-Makhaza said: “We also found out about the treatment of lower-ranked members. They informed us that they’re not allowed to talk about this [escape]. The only people [allowed] to respond to the media was the top management.
“Members also told us, ‘you know these people [prisoners], you don’t call them prisoners, you call them clients’. How do you have a client who is incarcerated?” Cebekhulu-Makhaza asked.
He said these revelations by its members alarmed union leaders and reinforced their 2015 call for private prison contracts to be scrapped.
“It has been our position from the beginning that private prisons are not going to work in our environment because they are very selective in how safe incarcerated prisoners are.
“The contract as it was introduced to us, [spoke about] comparative studies that they’d done abroad that [claimed that] private prisons are going to do well … in unleashing rehabilitation programmes. But there’s no product at the end of the day. The only thing we see is that resources of input are escalating but there’s nothing in return,” he said.
On the calls for Lamola to step down over the department’s handling of Bester’s escape, Cebekhulu-Makhaza said those making the calls were merely shifting the blame because the failure of oversight extended beyond the department.
“Everyone blames the next person. In the whole matter, people are shifting blame. Correctional services did not oversee the operations of Mangaung Correctional Centre but the portfolio committee has a responsibility also of oversight. They are not exempt from this [and] can’t stand on the other side.
“How many times did they visit those prisons … so it can’t be them who say ‘this one must go’. I would say the government is ineffective, don’t just say individuals, the whole government is ineffective,” he told the discussion.
