Correctional Services Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, says she has not yet received a report into a recent escape attempt by five prisoners, including notorious serial escapee, Bongani Moyo.
Moyo and four others tried to escape from the high security C-Max prison in Pretoria earlier this month, but they were soon re-arrested.
Addressing a media briefing on Monday, Mapisa-Nqakula, said while there had been suggestions of an inside job, the investigation is still underway.
Meanwhile, she says she has not yet received an application from jailed former police commissioner Jackie Selebi for medical parole.
" There is a parole board responsible for Pretoria central but in addition there is a medical parole advisory board, so in the event that would have happened that application would have been with the advisory panel but I am not aware so fat that it has been filed" Mapisa Nqakula said.
Meanwhile the Minister says electronic tagging could soon become part of the Department's mandate.
They've been considering electronic tagging as way to reduce overcrowding in prisons.
" Hopefully in the future if it works well the judiciary itself will have confidence in our system such that not everybody will be given a custodian sentence, people will be diverted knowing fully that out there, there are ways in which we can monitor those people" she said.
The Minister also said that she would like to see South Africans jailed in foreign countries, serve out their sentences at home.
She explains that the purpose would be to of give them support as families, because at the moment they are without that support and there is no rehabilitation that can work without the support of families.
