The department of correctional services has allegedly spent nearly R2bn on a programme to fit prisoners who are out on parole with electronic monitoring devices, but these devices remain unused because they can apparently only be fixed in Israel.
In one of the department’s most ambitious projects yet, it had hoped to electronically tag 10,000 prisoners who had been released on parole to keep them from committing more crimes, writes Jacques Pauw in the latest edition of online Afrikaans weekly Vrye Weekblad.
For several years, correctional services reported that the programme was a great success and that it heralded a new era in the management of paroled prisoners. Several times it asked parliament for more funds for the programme.
At the state capture commission, the department has been unmasked as a cash cow for the services company Bosasa, which won fraudulent contracts worth billions of rand by bribing top officials and politicians.