Protesting prison warders taking part in a protest march in Pretoria on Thursday were urged not to sing about Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour’s mother’s genitals or accuse him of being full of shit.
”Brothers and sisters, please refrain from using such strong language in a song,” said a marshal addressing the protesters, explaining that it did nothing for the image of the march.
The crowd had swelled from 40 at 10am to more than 300 protesters by noon as the marchers made their way from the Union Buildings to the Department of Correctional Services’ regional office in Arcadia to hand over a memorandum of grievances.
”We are marching to protest against the reduction of warders on duty in prisons over the weekends and the dangers posed to them by being outnumbered by prisoners,” said Police and Civil Rights Union (Popcru) spokesperson Pat Ntsobi.
According to a recent report, the department does not adhere to a policy requiring one warder to every 30 maximum-security prisoners and one to every 60 in medium-security jails, Ntsobi said.
There is a shortage of 9 000 warders countrywide, he said.
Ntsobi said Popcru has unsuccessfully tried to resolve its grievances with the department since 2003.
”We met with department heads several times at the bargaining council and were confronted with arrogance from them. They would often arrive without having prepared for the meeting,” he said.
He said an agreement was eventually signed with the department in October, stipulating that no more warders would be dismissed.
”The department has since gone against the agreement and dismissed more warders, citing budget constraints, although we indicated our members were prepared to take pay cuts to ensure their numbers in prison did not decrease,” Ntsobi said.
He alleged that 408 warders have been dismissed since the October agreement was signed.
The protesters displayed placards reading: ”Free warders from exploitation” and ”There is no excuse for unfair working conditions”.
Police kept an eye on the proceedings as the group toyi-toyied, chanted and blew on whistles and vuvuzelas. — Sapa