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The Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services today received a legal opinion on the Public Protector’s (PP’s) report on the escape of Thabo Bester from Mangaung Correctional Centre (MCC).
 
The committee is unable to act on the report due to pending legal action. It has, however, indicated its consideration of continuing with the hearing of the escape of Thabo Bester matter that was started by the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services of the 6thParliament.
 
The committee requested Parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Services Office to advise it on how to process the report of the PP on the “Investigation into allegations of improper conduct by the functionaries of the Department of Correctional Services relating to the escape of Thabo Bester from MCC and Allegations of undue delay and/or Omission by the Former Deputy Minister of Correctional Services to Intervene regarding the incident.
 
The committee heard that this request for the legal opinion is made in light of a pending litigation between the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) and G4S, a security company subcontracted by Bloemfontein Correctional Contracts (Pty) Ltd to run the Mangaung Correctional Centre.
 
The PP’s remedial action includes that the Minister of Correctional Services must take note of the findings of improper conduct against the DCS functionaries as highlighted in the Report, in connection with the allegation that there was undue delay by implicated officials of the DCS.
 
The National Commissioner of Correctional Services must within 90 calendar days from the date of receipt of the report, develop an appropriate DCS’ Escape Prevention Strategy and Guidelines for the Mangaung Correctional Centre facility indicating monitoring mechanisms, proper systems to be put in place directing how the functionaries of the DCS and Contractors must effectively prevent and manage escapes of inmates within MCC including all other correctional facilities.
 
The Commissioner must within 120 days from the date of receipt of the report ensure that the DCS has a documented guideline which communicates how Anonymous Anti-Corruption Reports from the centralised Office of the Public Service Commission’s Hotline and other sources will be attended to by DCS in line with the purpose and the objects of the Protected Disclosures Act, 2000 and other relevant prescripts.
 
In relation to the Speaker, the PP directed that the Speaker must within thirty (30) days of receipt of the report bring to the attention of the Chairperson of the committee to take cognisance thereof.
 
Committee Chairperson, Ms Kgomotso Anthea Ramolobeng, said the committee largely agree with the legal opinion that its overarching constitutional mandate is to ensure accountability and exercise of oversight functions over the DCS, and the court case does not prohibit the committee from fulfilling that constitutional mandate.
 
Ms Ramolobeng said the committee further resolved to write to the Speaker to request permission to gather all the information and documents gathered by the research team during the two-day hearing held last year by the 6th Parliament on the matter. She said: “We will then get an idea of whether the information requested then was supplied. Did we receive all the documentation.
 
“That two-day inquiry was raised in the meeting, and some feel we must continue with it from where the 6th Parliament ended off. We need to then decide what aspects do we look at in order not to repeat the work done.”
 
Ms Ramolobeng said the committee also took a decision to call the DSC to account and she indicated progress on the remedial action. “We must ensure that the department complies with the remedial actions. We want timelines of what was submitted already to the PP and what is still outstanding.
 
“Most importantly we want to know why they delayed in reporting the escape as highlighted by the PP,” added Ms Ramolobeng.

Issued by the Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services, Kgomotso Anthea Ramolobeng