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Prison warders honoured

Tebogo Monama

Tebogo Monama

The Department of Correctional Services has honoured some of its employees at the Corrections Excellence Awards ceremony at Emperor's Palace in Johannesburg.

Nontombi Khanzi, 27, received the Mlombile Award for her late husband, Tembalethu Matam.

The award is given posthumously to employees of the department who died "while being ideal correctional officials and who spared neither effort nor energy in advancing the founding values of our corrections services based on a new ethos".

Matam was a student correctional officer at Pollsmoor Admissions Centre when he was stabbed by an inmate.

"My heart is sore. The award is not helping me in any way. My husband is not coming back," Khanzi said.

She said though the inmate was jailed for 10 years for her husband's murder, she had still not made peace with his death.

Matthews Gantso, who was a correctional officer at East London Maximum Prison, also received the Mlombile Award.

The Mlombile posthumous award is given in honour of Siyabulela Mlombile, a former department regional commissioner for Gauteng.

Mlombile was a member of the ANC's military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe in exile in the 1980s.

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