Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma has said he sympathises with the families of victims of crime committed by prisoners released early under the remissions of sentence he granted, but has refused to apologise.
He also defended the right of residents of Nkandla to benefit from an R2 billion development planned for a few kilometres from his homestead, but denied instructing ministers to provide funding and a budget for it.
DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko said the country had been shocked by the spate of violent crimes committed by beneficiaries of the special remissions programme, including the rape of a 94-year-old grandmother in KwaZulu-Natal and the ordeal of a Porterville, Western Cape, woman who was kidnapped and repeatedly raped over three days by two men, one of whom was a presidential parolee.
That 114 of the prisoners released had reoffended was an indictment of the programme, Mazibuko said.
Zuma said not all criminals were the same. The “unfortunate thing” was that nothing was written on their foreheads to indicate they were likely to commit crime again, although they were screened by prisons staff. There had also been success stories, with one former prisoner now a pharmacy manager and two others working as a panel beater and an electrician, using skills they had learnt in jail. Special remissions were a worldwide practice, Zuma said.
He had granted them to mark Freedom Day, relieve overcrowding in jails - where prisoner numbers were 34 percent “above capacity” - and offer those released a chance to “behave” and “repent”. It was wrong to ask him to apologise, Zuma said.
“I can stand here and say without any hesitation that I sympathise with the victims of these kind of people who were taken out thinking they are already repented… we have rearrested them, they are back in prison… that’s what we can say.”
Zuma said the Nkandla-Mlalazi Smart Growth Centre was in one of 23 rural districts earmarked for development projects. “It is a pity that only Nkandla seems to generate interest,” he said.
Mazibuko asked how spending R2bn in one area, 3km from Zuma’s homestead, could be justified, when other areas in KwaZulu-Natal lacked even basic services.
Zuma said she should explain to him why people living in Nkandla should not benefit. “Should they be punished just because they are neighbours to Zuma? I don’t think so, it is not a correct approach. Nkandla is one of the well-known areas in KZN that are poverty-stricken.”
Joe Mcgluwa (ID) said there had been no development around the rural homes of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki when they were president.
Pretoria News