Seven bodyguards for KZN prisons official

Picture: @CongresoSPF_ARG

Picture: @CongresoSPF_ARG

Published Jul 20, 2016

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Durban - Tensions are running so high in the KwaZulu-Natal Correctional Services Department that the province’s acting deputy commissioner is being protected by seven bodyguards.

Deployed in January and sent to KZN by head office in Pretoria to intervene in the turmoil in Pietermaritzburg, Lucky Mthethwa is the department’s Durban area commissioner, doubling as the KZN acting regional deputy commissioner.

While Correctional Services has not divulged the nature of the threat to Mthethwa, his bodyguards, uMkhonto weSizwe veterans employed as prison officers, have blamed politics within the department.

Mthethwa confirmed that his life was under threat, but said the national office was handling the matter.

In explaining their role, one of the bodyguards, Menzi Mkhize, an MK Veterans secretary in the Moses Mabhida region and spokesmen for the bodyguards, talked of prison officials’ deaths in the province.

“In 1999 my brother, S’bu, was shot dead. In 2001 Thuthukile Bhengu and Linda Ngcobo were shot dead, thanks to the chaos in this provincial Correctional Service’s shenanigans. That’s why we were assigned as bodyguards to Mthethwa,” he said. His views were confirmed by others.

Mkhize said the department and state security organs had been alerted to the threats.

The bodyguards would make the provincial department “ungovernable” should anything happen to Mthethwa, he said.

The bodyguards told the Daily News their deployment was as a result of internal squabbles between “two factions” in the department - one that supported embattled provincial prison boss, Mnikelwa Nxele, and the other, Mthethwa’s supporters.

Mthethwa was appointed as Nxele’s deputy despite Bheki Mchunu already occupying the position, and long before Nxele was suspended in January for alleged acts of gross insubordination and failure to implement the instructions of the national office.

Nxele’s suspension was later lifted. During his suspension, Nxele claimed it had been unlawful and had long since been decided by national commissioner, Zacharia Modise.

According to Nxele, he had refused to reinstate a prison official who had given birth to a minister’s child. Nxele has apparently fired her after she was absent from duty for more than a month.

But Nxele said if there were security threats against Mthethwa, he would be privy to those as regional commissioner.

“The deaths that the bodyguards are referring to in past years have nothing to do with me. Official records show that in those times I was working outside the province.

“In 1998 I worked in the Western Cape and in 2007 I worked in Pretoria. In September 2008 I started working at the head office in Pietermaritzburg. They are referring to deaths in 1999 and 2001.

“If I’m a threat to Modise, why did they bring him to work with me? Before I was suspended, you never heard of camps within the provincial department, but now there are camps. It’s surprising,” said Nxele.

On the cost of protection and Mthethwa’s accommodation, one senior department officer has raised questions, also querying Mthethwa staying in hotels in Pietermaritzburg when he had been allocated a house in Durban.

Department spokesman, Manelisi Wolela, said when the state provisionally moved an official to a different area for operational reasons, the state had an obligation to provide temporary accommodation.

“When Mr Mthethwa was appointed in January 2016, no state house was available in Westville.

“It is crucial to note that he was also assigned to act as regional commissioner in Pietermaritzburg which necessitated that he operate from Pietermaritzburg with provisional accommodation by the state. This provisional accommodation arrangement had to continue for the period of acting as the deputy regional commissioner of KZN,” Wolela said.

Without explaining why there were now two regional deputy commissioners, Wolela said the department’s position was that there is only one KZN departmental acting deputy regional commissioner: Mthethwa.

“In terms of the law, the accounting officer (Modise) can exercise any delegated authority as and when it is necessary,” said Wolela.

On the bodyguards’ claims that no security assessment had been done to warrant their protection of Mthethwa, Wolela said: “A security assessment was conducted by delegated state agencies, which led to the deployment of security officials to support Mr Mthethwa. The management of these officials is in terms of the prescribed policies and regulations of the department.”

He said Mthethwa’s security status and risk would continuously be re-evaluated.

Asked who had threatened Mthethwa’s life, Wolela said that the information was not for public consumption.

Daily News

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