‘Streetwise’ convicts treated to KFC
Feathers fly as MEC caters to jailbirds with ‘two pieces’ of chicken
GAUTENG Community Safety MEC Sizakele NkosiMalobane has defended her decision to splurge over R60 000 of taxpayers’ money treating prisoners to a KFC meal last week.
This after she was photographed dishing out heaps of KFC’s Streetwise Twos to offenders at the Leeuwkop Prison near Sandton.
The photographs, which were posted on Facebook, sent social media into a tailspin with many criticising the decision while others welcomed it.
Nkosi-Malobane said yesterday she had visited the prison as part of her department’s Get Out and Stay Out (Goso) programme which had been running for the past two years.
The programme included a soccer match, traditional dancing, a choir and poetry.
It was attended by about 2 000 people, including school pupils, prison warders, department stakeholders, and “more than 900 prisoners”, many of them convicted of raping women and children, according to Nkosi-Malobane.
KFC’s Streetwise Two costs R31.90c, which works out to R63 800 for 2 000 people.
However, the MEC said they decided to buy KFC for the convicts as they would have been charged “an arm and a leg by caterers”.
“Instead of getting a caterer who was going to charge us, say, between R100 and R200 per head, we decided to get Streetwise Two instead, which is less than R50 per head. You must understand that the prison’s cooking schedule was also disturbed because of the programme,” she said.
It was unfortunate that people had focused on the food served on the day, she said, and not on the benefits of Goso, which was aimed at equipping offenders with crucial skills to employ upon their release.
Nkosi-Malobane defended her decision to treat the prisoners to fried chicken, saying: “It’s just two pieces of KFC, really. If it’s food that people are unhappy about, we can stop catering for these programmes, but we can’t stop the programmes entirely. In any case, we can’t overspend on food because my department is very small.”
The DA’s shadow minister of justice and correctional services James Selfe criticised Nkosi-Malobane’s decision, saying: “It defeats the whole process of imprisonment.”
Cope national spokesperson Dennis Bloem said: “We have always said that people in prisons are having it nice. How can the MEC spend such a large amount of money on people who have committed serious crimes against our people? There are law-abiding citizens who sleep on empty stomachs. There should be no luxuries in prison like eating KFC.”
Reacting on Facebook, Nel Bauermeister posted: “So that’s where our taxes are going, to treat criminals with luxuries. It’s jail, not a hotel. This could have made kids in orphanages very happy… ”
Dale Sherwin Glöss wrote: “Jusus the rapists, murderers, paedophiles, psychopaths get KFC? With taxpayers’ money? This can’t be right.
Thato Stitos Kunene said: “Do they have KFC every day? I don’t think so. Just because they are criminals does not mean we have to discard them, they’re human beings… hence prisons are called correctional/rehabilitation centres.”