Johannesburg - The Department of Correctional Services has recorded 3 688 confirmed Covid-19 cases across some of its facilities with 2 235 recoveries.
Police Minister Bheki Cele confirmed the figures during a justice, crime prevention and security cluster briefing on Wednesday.
A breakdown of the figures shows 2 203 officials have tested positive with 1 485 inmates. For recoveries, 1 231 are of inmates and there are currently 239 active cases.
Fifteen inmates and 31 officials have died from the virus.
Cele said there has been misinformation which attempts to make it seem like the number of active cases in the country’s prison is far higher than reported. He said the inmates who had tested positive account for 1% of the prison population.
“There is some misinformation that also needs to be corrected. Some organisations which claim to represent inmates have unfortunately resorted to exaggerating Covid-19 cases in our centres in an effort to instigate inmates. We are taking measures to address this. With regards to such planned instigations, most inmates have ignored this agenda as they are familiar with the preventative measures in all our centres,” he said.
Cele also confirmed 6 128 inmates had been released as part of the parole pardon system announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year. The parole is only for minor offenders.
At SAPS, the number of police officers who have tested positive is recorded at 7 021 and 53 police officers have died from the virus. Over 2 000 police officers have recovered.
Cele said some police stations and other government facilities had closed temporarily because of confirmed cases, but measures were under way to provide temporary mobile police stations and Home Affairs offices.
“We want to assure the public however that contingency measures such as the provision of the mobile units and the use of nearby buildings have been put in place to ensure minimal service delivery interruptions. We apologise for the inconvenience resulting from these temporary closures,” he said.
IOL
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