G4S to remain in charge of Bester prison

Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has extended G4S Security's contract at the infamous Mangaung Correctional Centre by three months.

This is to allow the court to decide if the department had fairly ended the 22-year-old contract it had with Bloemfontein Correctional Contracts (BCC) to manage the Bloemfontein prison, where convicted rapist Thabo Bester escaped last year.  

The department was supposed to have taken over the prison on August 31, following the untimely termination of the contract in May, in the wake of the Bester escape saga but BCC approached the courts and claimed that the termination was done unfairly and prematurely. 

Correctional services boss Makgothi Thobakgale said extending the contract would allow the dispute between his department and the BCC to be adjudicated in court.

This is contained in an affidavit Thobakgale filed on Tuesday after both parties in August went for a mediation.

This culminated in a court order directing the department and BCC to seek mediation in their dispute.

The department had on May 2 sent BCC a 90-day notice of termination. However Justice and Correctional Service minister Ronald Lamola put the termination in abeyance after the court challenge.

“The DCS accordingly furnished an undertaking to BCC that the termination of the concession contract would not be implemented for a period of three months from August 26 2023 to enable the motion to be adjudicated in ... court,” said Thobakgale.

The mediation took place under the auspices of Arbitration Foundation of SA on August 19 and 26.

Thobakgale, in the court papers, addressed BCC director John Mokoena’s allegations that government had bowed down to public pressure when deciding to send BCC a notice of termination of the contract, which has been running since 2000 and was due to expire in 2026.

Mokoena cited the facility’s track record of four escapes from custody including Bester’s in its 23 years compared to 515 escapes from other state-run prisons in the past 10 years. 

Thobakgale said the termination notice was issued to BCC after the company did not disclose to the department facts and circumstances surrounding the Bester escape, as and when the facts were discovered.

He also accused the BCC of failing to act transparently towards the department upon discovering that G4S employees were found guilty in disciplinary proceedings instituted on September 2022.

“BCC failed to act transparently towards the DCS when it discovered the breaches on the concession contract that facilitated the Bester escape,” he said.

“The evidence adduced by BCC at the parliamentary portfolio committee hearing revealed a lack of due appreciation, responsibility and cognisance of the negative impact and ramifications of the Bester escape on the public interest and the interest of Bester’s victims,” he said.

Thobakgale denied that it was “imperative to good order and proper administration of justice that the status quo is urgently maintained” of interim relief being granted pending the outcome of an action by BCC for specific performance of its rights under the concession contract.

“Such allegation is made on the basis that BCC cannot be replaced by another contracting party while the dispute between the parties is ongoing.”

Thobakgale said it was not the intention of the department that after BCC’s contract had been terminated to replace it with another company.

“...the DCS will be taking over the operations at the prison. To this end, the DCS put in place a takeover implementation plan after the termination notice was issued on May 2 2023,” he said.

• This story has been updated to correct an earlier version that said minister Lamola had made an about-turn