Offenders who absconded, failed to report or did not start community service were released on parole again by Correctional Services, the Auditor-General has told Parliament.
Omphemetse Setebe, senior manager at the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA), briefed the NCOP Select Committee on Security and Justice on Wednesday, 28 October 2026.
“We observed that offenders who violated parole conditions were re-released on parole. So they previously violated but were still considered again and re-released. The violations included absconding, failure to report and not starting community service where required. This highlights poor monitoring and weak assessment of the readiness of these inmates to be released into the communities, and it might pose a danger to the communities,” Serebe told the committee.
She said that correctional sentence plans did not specify deadlines or how frequently offenders should attend recommended rehabilitation programmes, allowing some to attend sessions only as they approached eligibility for parole.
“We have noted that the correctional sentence plans do not necessarily specify the deadlines or the frequency for the recommended rehabilitation programmes. This enables the inmates to attend these rehabilitation programme sessions only closer to the minimum detention period, to enable them to qualify for parole,” Setebe said.
“The concern is that this might not be effective to address the offending behaviour, as it only happens at a point in time and with the intention of securing parole,” she said.
DA MP Nicholas Gotsell raised the murder of Cape Town engineer Suraan Windvogel, whose alleged killer was on parole.
“The first one, which I find very important, is the parole violations that were referred to, and specifically the alleged murderer of a young engineer here in Cape Town called Suraan Windvogel. She was murdered in Athlone, and the alleged murderer was on parole and had previously been arrested without Correctional Services having been notified,” Gotsell said.
He asked whether AGSA had audited how parole violations and new arrests were detected and communicated between the South African Police Service (SAPS) and Correctional Services.
“Now my question to the AG is, given your findings on these weaknesses in the department’s information systems, have you audited the effectiveness of parole monitoring, specifically how violations and new arrests are detected and communicated between the South African Police Service and DCS?”
He said that the accused had used a false identity. “In the Windvogel matter, the accused gave SAPS a false name and a false identity, and his parole status was only discovered after fingerprint verification. Of course, this could be much better managed if there was an integrated system between all the role players in the criminal justice system, for example biometrics,” he said.
AGSA business unit leader Michelle Magerman said the audit had not examined the effectiveness of parole monitoring in that level of detail.
“In terms of the parole violations, we do not necessarily go into the detail of the effectiveness. What we did opt to look at in the current year, and to zoom into, is how long it takes and how it is managed from a parole perspective,” she said.
Senior audit manager Uviwe Platjie-Ruxwana said the lack of a common identifier across the justice system made it difficult to track offenders between institutions.
“What we have noted is that there is not a unique identifier. Justice uses its own identifier, SAPS uses its own identifier. It is important that within the justice cluster there is a unique identifier that is utilised, because that would assist, for example, SAPS to be able to pick up when someone they are getting on their side was previously convicted and was coming from DCS. At this point, the processes that are currently in place are not able to detect that,” she said.
Rashaad “Boontjie” Daniels, 60, is charged with Windvogel’s murder. Her body was found in a black refuse bag on a pavement in Kewtown, Athlone, on 23 June.
In a written reply to an NCOP question, the department said Daniels was placed on parole on 10 September 2025 under high-risk monitoring and house detention. SAPS was not notified of his release.
When he was later arrested for attempted motor vehicle theft, he gave the name Heshaam Ebrahim. SAPS did not identify him as a person registered at Athlone police station as an absconder under his real name.
The department learnt of the murder charge when a parole officer saw a Facebook post on 1 July. A warrant cancelling his parole was served the following day.
AGSA raised a similar concern in its 2024/25 findings, reporting that repeat offenders whose parole had been revoked were considered for parole again on new sentences.
The Minister told Parliament in March that 4,542 offenders were released on parole between June 2025 and February 2026. During the same period, 1,627 parolees were found to have breached their conditions, while 1,027 committed serious offences after release.