BPS signs off pilot and will roll out nationally over the next few months

AS South Africans, we often wonder why things seem to be going swimmingly well in neighbouring Botswana where their currency – the pula performs much better in the markets than our rand.

Exponents of capital punishment look across the border to Botswana in their contention that the death penalty remains a panacea against crime.

At a time when South African authorities are smarting after the embarrassment of the Thabo Bester prison escape and subsequent rearrest in Tanzania, there is new excitement bubbling in Botswana about a new e-technology integrated software management system for their entire justice cluster.

The Prison Information Management System (PIMS) that the Botswana Prison Service (BPS) is gushing about and will be rolling out in their 24 prisons, a centre for illegal immigrants and the BPS Staff Training Site was pioneered through a collaboration between BPS and South African security software and technology development experts, Integritron Integrated Solutions.

Integritron is a majority black-owned proudly South African business whose focus is on transformation has ensured that the in-house development team is comprised of majority black engineers, making this a truly transformed African solution available to the rest of the globe.

Integritron has done work for the Department of Correctional Services in the country.

But with corruption almost a national pastime in South Africa, even the most fool-proof systems will be handicapped by human interference. Among the accused in the Bester escape is a technician who switched off the camera on the day of the prison break.

The accused are men with jobs – a steady income, but who greedily want more, in keeping with the country’s malady of conspicuous consumption. The first thing some of the G4S employees embroiled in the Bester escape did was to splash out on a lavish wedding and a high-engine performance vehicle, among others.

Intrinsic to PIMS is a cash management feature.

It is now common knowledge that Bester was flush with cash before the escape. A deep throat, also an inmate at the Mangaung Correctional Centre, told eNCA how Bester lived like a king in prison.

Maybe cash is king but not with PIMS.

PIMS comes with a Cash Management Facility which advances the department towards a cashless society, thus eliminating corruption using cash within prison facilities.

PIMS will enable the automation and integration of the entire Inmate Management Process, thereby ensuring transparency in managing, monitoring, projections, and decision-making through all stages of an offender’s time in the institution.

The riddle the South African authorities are still unravelling is how the body of Katlego Bereng ended up in Cell 35, as ostensibly that of Bester dying in what was deemed a suicide by fire.

PIMS is designed to provide a single view of prisoner information based on fingerprint identification against the integrated biometric database. Prisoner fingerprint identification is used at every point of prisoner interaction in all processes from admission through to release. This means that it becomes impossible to impersonate someone else once in the system.

South Africa has a similar system currently in use in their correctional facilities but not at the two private prisons, inclusive of Mangaung.

And Botswana has no time for euphemism. Their sites are known as prisons. Those incarcerated are not inmates, as opposed to the politically correct terminology of South Africans.

The PIMS version is South Africa is known as Integrated Inmate Management System (IIMS).

PIMS is intended to save Gaborone from the blushes suffered by Pretoria when Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi revealed that Bester had never been issued a South African ID.

This biometric system to be rolled out will be in place to improve efficiencies within the department and intends to ensure the reuse of information between government departments, ensure information sharing and provide a single view of a prisoner within the justice system.

In other words, any individual attempting to impersonate another person, will be exposed through the PIMS application. Through information sharing with relevant government agencies any prisoner who is not known or cannot be positively identified by for example the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs will be flagged.

Like everyone else, Botswana is alive to the fact that virtual technology is no longer a luxury, but a necessity in almost all spheres of life.

It is for this reason that PIMS is the new toy in the hands of the child, the prison authorities in Botswana.

Their excitement is justifiable given the bester scandal further south.

BPS has successfully signed off the Pilot Phase for Prison Operations through the implementation of their world class and ground-breaking online system PIMS and will be taking the system live over the next few months across all sites in Botswana.

Botswana seems to be spared the scourge of corruption, at least, not as susceptible as South Africa.

The Corruption Perceptions Index 2022 compiled by Transparency International and published in January 2023 makes for disturbing reading.

The least corrupt countries, scoring more points, are Denmark (90), Finland and New Zealand (87), Singapore and Sweden (83), Switzerland (82) and the Netherlands at 80.

Botswana is scored at 60 while South Africa, at 43, is more corrupt and in fine company with Senegal, Ghana, Benin and Bulgaria.

The worst is Belarus at 39.

Business Botswana President Gobusamang Keebine says, when asked about corruption in his country: “In answer to that question, I would categorically say as Business Botswana, the Apex chamber of Commerce and Industry and Employer representative in the country, we have not nor has there been any reason to be concerned about corruption in the prison system at any time. Having said that, we applaud the government of Botswana for being proactive and implementing the PIMS system to ensure that any future corrupt activities are effectively managed.”

The business community in Botswana welcomes PIMS, Keebine says: “Please understand that though my organisation was not directly involved, Business Botswana fully supported the project as it provided cutting-edge technology which at the time was non-existent in Botswana. It is a 4IR technology which in our view was at some point to be rolled out to the entire country ensuring efficiencies and proper identification of citizens and prisoners specifically.

“Our view is this could, with negligible modification, be rolled out to the entire country to assist in such areas as national identification of citizens.”

“PIMS came at a time in Botswana when knowledge economy and 4IR were topical, hence its implementation in the prison system of Botswana was in line with the aspirations of the country and the president, but critical in ensuring a proper record-keeping and accountability of the prison population.

“Business Botswana is thus in full support of the installation of this cutting-edge technology in Botswana prisons ensuring that the prison population is accounted for on a 24/7 basis.”