The escape of murderer and serial rapist Thabo Bester from the Mangaung maximum security prison in May 2022 was not an isolated event but the culmination of institutional degradation and dysfunction at the facility, former Constitutional Court judge Edwin Cameron told MPs on Thursday.
The facility, under management of a private company G4S in terms of a public-private partnership contract, is now under a temporary manager appointed by the department of correctional services.
MPs were told the department has established there were several breaches of the contract in relation to the Bester escape compromising the security of the prison. The temporary manager replaces the G4S director of the prison on the grounds that G4S had lost control of the facility, but G4S management and staff remain in place. Costs for this will be claimed from G4S. The contract has been referred for legal advice to determine whether it can be terminated.
Justice & correctional services minister Ronald Lamola informed parliament’s justice & correctional services committee that government had paid R7.7bn under the contract from 2001 and the end of the 2001/22 financial year. It is now paying R45m a month for the facility. The contract will end in June 2026.
Cameron, the inspecting judge of the Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services (JICS), appeared before the committee that is conducting an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Bester’s escape, which was covered up as an alleged suicide by fire.
Bester, who was arrested in Tanzania, has returned to SA and is now being held in the Kgosi Mampuru Central maximum security prison. His partner and accomplice Nandipha Magudumana appeared in the Bloemfontein magistrate’s court and was remanded in custody until her next court appearance on April 17.
Cameron said Mangaung was a model prison from a structural point of view “but beneath that there is functionality that is rotten”.
“Thabo Bester was not a rare event. It is symptomatic of the degradation of institutional authority, organisational cohesion and management control. That could not have occurred without a significant degradation of almost every organisational and control function that you should have in a prison,” Cameron said.
Cameron was stinging in his criticism of G4S — the company that runs Mangaung under contract with the department of correctional services — which he said had given “lamentably vague, evasive and responsibility-shy” answers to questions when its representatives appeared before the committee on Wednesday.
‘Disbelief, incredulity’
Cameron said he and JICS officials were “struck with disbelief” and “absolute incredulity” (feelings Lamola said he shared) about the facts of the alleged suicide and Bester’s escape. It was hard to believe what had happened, and this had acted as a drag on the investigations.
“I think at the core of the foot-dragging was G4S. They thought that they could get away with dismissing two or three lower personnel, medium-level management personnel,” Cameron said.
“There was defensiveness (on the part of G4S) rooted in self-interest, in a reluctance to take responsibility,” Cameron said.
G4S had failed to act with urgency on the matter. Cameron said G4S knew a long time ago that the charred body in the cell was not that of Bester, but the had been “closing their eyes to it”.
The judge admitted that the handling of the matter by the department, as well as the JICS, fell short of what was required. “I was part of the same process of disbelief and slow levers,” he said.
Cameron said the JICS deferred to the SA Police Service in August 2022 not to go public about the escape as they wanted to interview two or more witnesses and did not want to jeopardise the investigation.
He informed news publisher GroundUp in September/October of information that was publicly accessible about the events, but MPs wanted to know why the JICS in its regular quarterly reports to the committee, the minister and deputy minister did not suggest that something sensational had occurred.
DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach expressed disappointment that the JICS had failed to inform the committee and Cameron accepted responsibility for this. He said with hindsight he would have handled the matter differently and should have informed the committee six months ago.
Breytenbach and ACDP MP Steve Swart were scathing of the fact that the SAPS did not inform the public and specifically Bester’s rape victims of his escape. Police minister Bheki Cele said in reply to a query that this was to protect the investigation and not to alert Bester.
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