Security company G4S made the bors warm of several parliamentarians on Tuesday after it failed to appear before the justice and portfolio committee that was meant to be briefed about the daring escape of Facebook rapist Thabo Bester.
Bester, with the help of wardens, reportedly managed to walk out of the Mangaung correctional centre last year, which is being privately managed by G4S.
Instead, the company sent a letter with its lawyers to the committee asking to be summoned, and that it appears under parliamentary privilege after the Easter Weekend, reports IOL.
This sparked outrage from MPs, with some saying their action was suggesting that G4S has something to hide.
Committee chairperson Bulelani Magwanishe said the security company was invited via the Department of Correctional Services along with DCS and the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons.
Magwanishe said last week there was an undertaking from the company to attend the meeting, but instead they sent a letter to him on Monday afternoon, notifying him of their non-attendance.
Magwanishe said the committee’s sequencing of presentations was that G4S would be first, followed by the DCS, Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services and SAPS.
DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach said she was absolutely outraged that G4S could send such a letter and was now demanding to be summoned in order to obtain some “flimsy protection”.
“It is very clear that they have something to hide.
“If they had nothing to hide, they would have been here,” she said.
ACDP chief whip Steve Swart noted that the company talked about their contractual obligation, but questioned how Bester’s rape survivors were never informed about his escape.
Magwanishe said they would ask National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to issue a summons for G4S.
“South Africans are waiting for an explanation,” he added.
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