Responding to OFM News regarding the alleged non-adherence, BCC - in which international security company G4S is a shareholder - says since the onset of the pandemic, the privately run correctional centre has been applying what they deem to be “the strictest Covid-19 protocols”. These include shift rotations, regular screening, deep cleaning as well as the provision of sanitizer and personal protective gear

BCC says the department of correctional services, as well as several labour unions, have conducted oversight visits to the facility, and say conditions are satisfactory and Covid-19 regulations are being adhered to. Notably, however, it isn’t the prison’s employees that have expressed their disgruntlement, but has in fact been the prisoners. 

In early August, the SABC reported that inmates reportedly set a cell on fire, demanding that management be more forthcoming regarding the state of contagion at the prison.

The prison’s first confirmed case was reported by OFM News in May. 

In February, the prison came under scrutiny after the North Gauteng High Court ordered the Department of Correctional Services to publicise a damning report into the notorious private prison. The report delved into allegations, first revealed by the Wits Justice Project in 2013, of prisoners being tortured at the G4S-run maximum security prison.  The Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University were the applicants in the matter, and have according to their statement, been attempting to access the report in question since 2015.

A 2018 OFM News report on overcrowded prisons revealed that the private maximum security prison, located along the R 702 to Dewetsdorp from Bloemfontein, is in fact the largest in the Free State, accommodating just under 3 000 prisoners. 

In late 2019, the OFM News team was tipped off regarding murmurs on the ground that the Correctional Services Department was in the process of taking control of the prison. The latter party denied that this was the case, adding that this was nothing more than a rumour being passed around by the prison wardens.

Some of these alleged gross human rights violations including electro shocking and assault at the hands of the prison wardens.

OFM News