Parliament - The fate of private security firm G4S after allegations of torture at Mangaung prison remains unknown, it emerged in Parliament on Tuesday.
A correctional services task team was investigating the allegations and would present its findings to the department within the next two weeks, senior officials told the correctional services portfolio committee.
Under investigation were allegations that inmates at the privately run maximum security centre were forcibly injected with anti-psychotic medication and electro-shocked to subdue and control them.
G4S, which faces similar allegations of torture at prisons it manages abroad, operated the Mangaung Correctional Centre before the department took over control last month.
The department invoked section 112 of the Correctional Services Act on October 9, which allows it to appoint a senior official to run a public-private partnership (PPP) centre if the contractor has lost, or is likely to lose, control of such a facility.
The Mangaung prison has been plagued by controversy following prison riots, stabbings, and a hostage situation.
Speaking to reporters after briefing MPs, department officials said they would not pre-empt the findings of the task team.
Minister Sibusiso Ndebele said he would meet the Bloemfontein Corrections Consortium (BCC), in which G4S has a 20 percent stake, next week to discuss how the prison should be operated.
The department has a 25-year contract with the consortium, which took effect in 2000.
Ndebele indicated that the department did not want to be punitive, but would urge G4S to comply with the standards of incarceration in South Africa, which included protecting the dignity of inmates.
“There are consequences for not fulfilling that (obligation). I think G4S will find it in their own interests to actually play the game,” Ndebele said.
Ndebele said G4S appeared to want to comply with the department's requests.
“They are approaching it positively... but the proof of the pudding is going to be in the eating because what we require are measurable steps both in terms of inmate incarceration and staff management, and generally the upkeep of the centre,” he said.
Ndebele would not say whether the department could terminate the contract with the consortium should the task team's findings be adverse.
The department's deputy commissioner responsible for supply chain management, Mollet Ngubo, later confirmed that there was a sunset clause in the contract with the BCC should findings of non-compliance be made against G4S.
“We have taken control now temporarily and there's also a clause if you want to terminate the contract,” Ngubo said.
Acting chief financial officer Nandi Mareka estimated the 25-year contract with BCC to operate the Mangaung facility would cost taxpayers R10.7 billion.
The operation of the only other PPP prison, in Limpopo, would cost taxpayers R10.6bn, also over a 25-year period.
MPs said they were glad the government had acknowledged that the PPP model for prisons had failed, and said many more prisons could have been built with the funds to be spent on the two jails.
Sapa