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Pollsmoor 'was negligent'
09/06/2006 14:55 - (SA)
Cape Town - Senior prisons officials faced tough questioning in parliament on Friday over the fiery death in April this year of Pollsmoor prison inmate Marilyn Syfers.
Syfers, 22, set her cell alight after having been chained to the grill of her cell door in the female prison, supposed to be one of the department's trend-setting "centres of excellence", for two days.
She was the seventh person to have burned to death in a Pollsmoor cell in the last two years.
Pollsmoor authorities should have learned a "bitter lesson" from the earlier deaths, African National Congress MP Nkosinathi Fihla said during questioning from members of Parliament's correctional services portfolio committee.
'A lot of negligence'
"There was a lot of negligence, I would say from my side. Why was it necessary to handcuff an individual in a single cell, handcuff [her] on the grill?" he asked.
James Selfe, of the Democratic Alliance, said it seemed that Syfers had been aggressive and disturbed, but there had been no medical or psychological intervention.
It seemed that under those circumstances a simple shot of the tranquilliser Valium would have done a great deal of good, and avoided Syfers' death.
An angry committee chairman, Dennis Bloem, demanded to know why the Pollsmoor area commissioner, Clifford Mketshane, was not present to answer questions.
"I specifically said we want the top management of Pollsmoor," he said. "I'm very much disappointed that they are not here to come and respond directly," he said.
"We thought this is the best team of people to brief you on the matter," responded Deputy Minister of Correctional Services Loretta Jacobus.
She said if the committee was not satisfied with their responses, they could summon the other officials another time.
Bloem also reminded the correctional services team that in its 2004 report, after six inmates died in cell fires, the portfolio committee had called for the entire leadership of Pollsmoor to be changed.
"Now it's 2006 and this thing is happening again," he said.
Employees had been suspended
Acting Western Cape regional commissioner James Smalberger told the committee that four members had been suspended following Syfers' death and faced disciplinary charges.
A separate probe had been launched into the non-availability of medical staff at the female prison at the time.
The police were conducting their own investigation, and criminal charges could follow.
He said that according to the department's own investigation - which was carried out by a panel of Pollsmoor officials - Syfers was put in handcuffs, leg irons and a "belly chain" after verbally abusing members and threatening physical violence against them, and "damaging state property" by breaking cell windows.
It also emerged on Friday that more than a year and a half after the six Pollsmoor inmates were burned to death in their cells in August and October 2004, the department has still not introduced fire-resistant mattresses in prisons.
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