BILL BLUMENFELD, Cape Town | Monday
DISGRACED former cabinet minister and New National Party member, Abe Williams, says he is planning to look at the interests of the community, especially to the people of Atlantis on the Cape West coast where poverty is rampant.
”There are lots of priorities in terms of poverty. It’s a big challenge to alleviate the poverty and lack of housing on the West coast,” Williams said on Tuesday on his release on parole from Cape Town’s Pollsmoor Prison.
He said he did not have to be in politics to see to their needs.
”I’ve always been a community man and I will try to serve my community irrespective of whether or not I am in politics.”
Williams was released on parole after serving just over a year of his sentence for fraud and theft.
He was jailed for theft amounting to R268 142 and was also found guilty of four counts of fraud involving R240 112. His parole ends on September 8, 2003.
In terms of his parole conditions, he will have to report to the community correction office in Cape Town once a month. A further condition is that he will not be able to change his residential address or leave the Cape Town magisterial district without approval from the head of community corrections.
Williams said he still had a long life ahead of him.
”I’m 60 years old and I will try and spend some time with my family and give a little bit of love to my wife.”
Looking none the worse for wear and having lost a few kilos during his stay at Pollsmoor, Williams said he was fit and well.
Asked if he would consider re-entering politics again, he said he would not like to say he would not enter the political arena.
”I spent 15 years in politics. I was in politics in sport long before I joined politics in government. But right now I have other priorities.”
He said prison life had not been a pleasant experience but it was something he felt would leave him in good stead.
”I tried to do my best here. I had good relations with other prisoners, I was never threatened and I was never insecure here.
”People respected me and I must say that I had the full co-operation with the officials and the inmates.
”I tried to do the best for them and I leave behind an unfinished task and I also leave behind people that I have a lot of respect for,” Williams said.
He said that while in prison he was involved in sport such as staging of tournaments. He had started a course out of his own pocket with a few assistants such as Western Cape premier Gerald Morkel, Rabie Properties and his lawyer Frikkie Erasmus.
”They have assisted me and I have run a course here for the last year on sport leadership,” Williams said.
He said he had also been involved in church life and was thankful for the concern from the Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane.
The past year had not been easy.
Williams said he had applied to the prison authorities to allow him into the prison and to work at Pollsmoor in terms of rehabilitation of prisoners.
Something also needed to be done about the overcrowding in prisons.
Western Cape acting provincial commissioner for correctional services Mnikelwa Nxele said at the weekend that Williams had been a model prisoner. – Sapa