The Department of Correctional Services has taken back full operational control of the Mangaung Correctional Centre following the expiry of a 25-year public-private partnership with Bloemfontein Correctional Contracts (BCC), operated by G4S, ending one of South Africa’s longest-running private prison management agreements.
The handover raises renewed attention on the privately run facility, which has in recent years faced scrutiny over management practices and operational challenges, and comes as government moves to place the high-security prison fully under state control.
The facility has now been incorporated into the Grootvlei Management Area under the Free State/Northern Cape Region.
National Commissioner Makgothi Samuel Thobakgale oversaw the transition on site, describing it as the result of more than two years of preparation to ensure continuity of operations.
“This transition is the result of more than two years of meticulous planning and preparation,” Thobakgale said.
Officials had been deployed in advance to shadow operations, recruitment processes were completed, and all operational requirements were put in place ahead of the takeover, he said.
From the day of transition, both officials and inmates will operate under standard Department of Correctional Services uniforms.
The Department said the facility remains fully operational and that there has been no disruption to services during the handover process.
All operations will now fall under the Correctional Services Act, 1998 (Act No. 111 of 1998), as well as departmental policies and standards governing correctional facilities.
While the Department framed the takeover as an orderly transition, the change marks the end of a long-standing private management arrangement at a facility that has previously drawn public and institutional attention over conditions and oversight concerns.
DCS said the move reflects government’s broader push to strengthen direct oversight of correctional facilities and reinforce rehabilitation, reintegration, and public safety objectives.
Thobakgale commended officials involved in the process, describing the handover as a demonstration of professionalism and readiness within the Department.
The takeover brings an end to a decades-long private management model at the facility and places it fully under state control for the first time in 25 years.