G4S says it will attend parliamentary meeting if given immunity

Global security company G4S will be summoned to appear before parliament’s justice and correctional services committee to account for the Thabo Bester saga.

The company, which runs the Mangaung Correctional Centre, failed to attend Tuesday’s urgent parliamentary meeting citing confidentiality and contractual obligations.

Instead, the company — in a letter to committee chair Bulelani Magwanishe — requested a guarantee that it would be immunised from a breach of contract before it can appear before parliament. 

In a letter to the committee, regional commercial director of G4S Africa Cobus Groenewoud said they would welcome the opportunity to attend a formal meeting under parliamentary privilege.

The company said it was bound by statutory and contractual confidentiality obligations. 

“In order to enable G4S Correctional Services SA to fully and properly engage with the portfolio committee, it would need to be afforded the same protections which ordinarily would apply to those attending parliamentary committees, such as those stipulated under section 16 of the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliaments and Provincial Legislatures Act,” he said.

“In terms of section 14 of the Privileges and Immunities Act, G4SCS SA therefore respectfully requests that the committee summon G4S, in particular the author of this letter and Messrs Joseph Monyante and Gert Beyleveld, to attend a portfolio committee after the Easter recess in order to allow G4S sufficient time to prepare.”

Magwanishe said G4S had been invited to the meeting and there was an undertaking that it would be in attendance.

“Invitations to entities are done through the ministry of justice and correctional services and that was done and we got an assurance that there was communication between [the ministry] and G4S and there was an undertaking that G4S is going to be part of us,” he said.

Magwanishe said the company responded after lunch on Monday with their request for parliamentary privilege.

He said in terms of the committee’s sequencing of presentations, they wanted the company to present before the two departments — correctional services and police.

But according to G4S legal representative Ben Winks, the company did not directly receive an invitation, but incidentally heard from an invited party about the meeting and therefore wasn’t aware that a presentation would be required.

The meeting ,which lasted less than an hour, started on a fiery note on Tuesday because of the company’s absence.

MPs from across party spectrum lashed out at the company, in its absence, accusing it of undermining parliament and its work. They proposed that the meeting should not continue without G4S as the process would be prejudiced.

“It makes a mockery of this procedure to proceed with this inquiry without G4S being present,” said DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach.

She said it was comparable to calling the accused last in a criminal case and giving them an opportunity to hear all the evidence against them so that they could fabricate answers and defences before giving evidence.

“I am absolutely outraged that G4S can send us a letter such as the one you have read out. They are in control of a private prison facility. They have responsibilities not only to the inmates but to society at large.”

Breytenbach said the company thumbing its nose at the portfolio committee of parliament to which they should account, by demanding to be summoned in order to obtain “some sort of flimsy protection”.

“It’s very clear that they have something to hide. If they had nothing to hide, they would have been here.”

The meeting resolved to summon G4S to appear on a date to be agreed upon with National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.

TimesLIVE