By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Multinational security company G4S was in the firing line with MPs having set down two days to hear the submission of the company, on the dramatic escape of Thabo Bester.
Bester and his celebrity doctor girlfriend Nandipha Magudumana, and a Mozambican national are being held in Arusha, Tanzania, after they were arrested on Friday.
The committee had said this matter was a priority for them and cannot be left unattended.
It was in the interest of the country to find out what happened when Bester escaped.
This was after G4S had insisted that Bester had died in a fire in prison after allegedly dying by suicide.
Correctional Services confirmed two weeks ago that Bester did infact escape from prison after they finally confirmed the DNA of the person found burnt to death in Cell 35, was not Bester. An autopsy found that the unknown man was killed by blunt force trauma to the head.
Bester and Magudumana were finally nabbed in Tanzania on Friday.
Government has sent top police, correctional services and home affairs officials to ensure they are successfully deported back to South Africa.
Mgudumana’s father Zolile Sekeleni, 65, and former warder at the prison, Senohe Matsoara, appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on murder charges related to the unknown man in Cell 35.
Meanwhile DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach said that G4S’s 21-page report is “completely exculpatory” and takes no responsibility for Bester’s escape.
“You don’t tell us what happened, how it happened.” She said there was no notice that a serial rapist was on the run.
The presentation detailing events leading up to Bester’s escape was delivered by G4S Director Cobus Groenewoud, Mangaung Correctional Centre (MCC) Director Joseph Monyante and Audit and Risk Director Gert Byleveld.
G4S’s presentation looked into three investigations commissioned into Bester’s escape including Saps criminal investigation, Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services’ (JICS) independent investigation into an unnatural death and the MCC’s compliance investigation.
G4S apologised for their absence last week. Groenewoud said they could not appear before Parliament earlier as they would have been “legally barred”.
“We have the greatest respect for this committee and sincerely regret that we were not in a position to attend until now.
“We are grateful to the committee for the summons we received on 7 April 2023, which provide us with the opportunity for meaningful and lawful participation in today’s meeting, “he said.
Groenewoud told Parliament that it was G4S that alerted the police of a strange petrol smell coming from Bester’s cell and that his death was still considered suicide.
He said the CCTV system was fully functional except for the cameras in the broadway unit, which housed Bester and the administrative building
“There is distant video footage of two individuals running towards the administration building in the early hours of that morning. We were unable to identify whether these individuals are G4S staff members or whether they were inmates.”
The infuriated MP then said she would have expected further details about the officials against whom action had been taken and had been fired in the report “instead of this whitewash”.
She asked if G4S does lifestyle audits on its employees.
Monyante said it is not necessary to do lifestyle audits.
The response further infuriated Breytenbach further.
“I beg your pardon? Do you want to repeat that? You employ people to look after hardened criminals and you don’t think its necessary to do lifestyle audits on your staff who have access to money, who are known for bribery and corruption. Are you saying your staff is above that?”
African National Congress (ANC) MP Xola Nqola said allowing Bester to have a personal laptop may have enabled him to commit crime while in prison.
Nqola claims that there are report that Bester was running a multi-million rand company from his cell and asked what the purpose was of Bester’s authorised laptop.
Groenewoud, who took over answering the question from Monyante, said Bester had a laptop because he was studying.
“Inmates who are registered students have the right and I believe its in terms of court cases that the DSC lost in 2015 and 2018, they have the right if they are registered with a formal institution of learning to have access to a laptop and for that reason inmate Bester had access to that laptop.”
Monyante said Bester was registered to Damelin.
“The laptop belonged to Bester.”
Nqola asks how Bester was allowed to have a personal laptop – to his knowledge, student inmates use Department of Correctional Services (DCS) issued laptops.
“Why was he allowed to have a personal laptop when he ran the risk of using it as a tool to commit his crimes?” asked Nqola
However, G4S insisted that he qualified to have a personal laptop.
Watch Live in the video below:
Video Courtesy of Parliament.