By Carvin Goldsone & Nathi Olifant
There are 109 disciplinary hearings pending against correctional service officials who have been named by the Jali Commission as possible contributors to shocking problems in South Africa's prisons.
Department of correctional services national spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said on Wednesday: "These 109 cases are new cases, and the officials have been served with notice of intended disciplinary actions."
He said that since the beginning of the Jali Commission, 43 officials had been dismissed across the country. He said this did not include officials dismissed this year because the department had not yet consolidated the official number of employees dismissed.
Already 13 of the 43 dismissed officials had been named and shamed.
Among some of the serious problems in KwaZulu-Natal identified by the commission were widespread corruption, political divisions among staff and preferential treatment of certain prisoners.
These problems led to a total lack of law and order in the province's prisons. Wolela said the department had set up a special task team of 20 officials to follow up and conclude cases stemming from the Jali Commission.
He said the team was deployed to look at correctional facilities across the country and the results from their findings would be ongoing.
He said that while the task team would see that the remaining recommendations of the Jali Commission were followed through, the department had already made various interventions.
"The commission's focus period was two to three years ago, and in the interim we were already working on strengthening the leadership ability of our higher ranks," he said.
He said the department was also implementing new correctional rehabilitation approaches.
"We had management and institutional problems which were picked up by the commission, and we have looked at about 60 percent of the recommendations," he said.
Among the 13 officials who were shamed by the department are two formerly Durban-based prison officials, S P Ndlovu, who received money from an inmate, and M Dlomo, who was charged with irregularities in the community correction system.
There were also two Pietermaritzburg-based officials from the Qalakabusha Correctional Centre, who were dismissed on charges of corruption and illegal recruitment.
President Thabo Mbeki appointed Judge Thabani Jali as chairperson of the commission of inquiry, established in September 2001, to investigate alleged corruption, maladministration, violence, the scourge of sexual violence and intimidation in the department of correctional services.