Johannesburg - A technical security company whose affiliates have scored several lucrative government tenders has been linked to the facilitation of Thabo Bester’s dramatic escape from G4S-run Mangaung Correction Centre.
Parliament this week heard that somebody believed to be a technician of Integritron Integrated Solutions (IIS), the company sub-contracted by G4S to provide, monitor and maintain an electronic security system, had either been negligent or a willing participant in assisting Bester’s escape.
IIS appeared before Parliament’s Justice and Correctional Service Portfolio Committee, which, this week, held hearings on Bester’s prison escape in May last year.
It has since been revealed that 44-year-old IIS CCTV technician Teboho Lipholo, who was on duty during the night of the escape, has been arrested after failing a polygraph test conducted by his employer before he was suspended. He has since resigned.
DA MP Advocate Glynnis Breytenbach linked IIS and its affiliated companies to ANC’s Progressive Business Forum (PBF) through its holding company’s director Goeff Greyling.
However, the PBF’s convenor Sipho Mbele denied Breytenbach’s allegations when Sunday Independent approached him for comment.
“Kindly be advised that the companies mentioned or the affiliates are not PBF subscribers,” said Mbele.
Former Bosasa chief operations officer Angelo Agrizzi implicated Greyling during the Zondo Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture hearings.
Parliament’s committee heard that Lipholo allegedly disconnected the security apparatus shortly before a fire was started in Bester’s single prison cell and he mysteriously escaped, leaving behind a body engulfed in flames.
IIS’s internal legal advisor Dylan Williams and the company’s director Latichia Pedro appeared before the MPs to answer difficult questions on behalf of the company.
As the two were unable to answer most of the questions, the MPs demanded that technicians who investigated the matter be called to appear before them to give proper answers.
Breytenbach accused ISS of being incompetent by failing to supply qualified technicians to maintain technical security installation leading to the disconnection of the CCTV camera hence the failure to record the escape.
“If you were (competent), he wouldn’t be able to walk in and pull the plug out, because that is what happened. Someone pulled the plug out,” said Breytenbach.
Williams said he had seen a snippet of the video footage that does not show the individual pooling the plug off but instead walking through the door into the control room.
“The footage just depicts the individual standing there,” said Williams.
‘’IIS had for years been contracted by G4S to install and operate the security apparatus of the privately run maximum prison.’’
“I don’t know what job you are doing, and I don’t how much you getting paid for it, but it sounds unbelievably dodgy to me that somebody can walk into a room, have access to a room of that sensitivity and pull the plug out of the wall, boom, no more recording,” Breytenbach said.
She questioned why IIS had not installed a system that would warn or provides a backup if the CCTV had stopped recording.
“What kind of qualified technical resources are maintaining the security installation?” she said.
Breytenbach put it to Williams and Pedro that ISS and G4S officials should have known between May and October last year that somebody had unplugged the CCTV system and should have known who had done that, but the investigation into the disconnection only happened a year later after the media had broke the story of Bester’s escape.
The CCTV cameras stopped recording near the single cell section at 7:38 pm and resumed at 4.11 am when Bester had already escaped after setting the fire, which created an impression that he had committed suicide.