WITS RESIDENCE students are bribing security guards to let their partners and friends sleep in their rooms.
Former Barnato resident Regal Mashau, 4th year engineering, told Wits Vuvuzela he used to buy security guards “chocolate” to let his girlfriend sleep over.
“When I was still a resident at Barnato I used to buy the guards ‘chocolate’ all the time, that means I would give them R20 to allow my girlfriend to let sleep over,” he said.
Students in university residences are allowed to have visitors in their rooms but visitors are supposed to leave the rooms at 11pm.
However, head of security at Fidelity Services, Enoch Mdunge, denied bribery took place and said the accusations were the result of students who had a vendetta against security guards.
[pullquote align=”right”]“It’s a green lie, the students are trying to get security officers expelled,” Mdunge said.[/pullquote]Mdunge said students always tried to have visitors without having them sign in. He said the students have become bitter about this.
“It is a form of revenge, because the security guards won’t allow such behaviour, because it could get them [security guards] in trouble,” he said.
The Wits accommodation office could not be reached for comment.
A first-year accounting sciences student, who asked not to be named because she is still living in res, said students at Wits Junction bribe security guards to let their partners and friends sleep over. She added that some security guards are lax in verifying that students entering Wits Junction are actual residents.
“People allow their friends to sleep over all the time. Security guards are meant to check if our student cards have Junction stickers at the back, if they don’t they have ways of ensuring that we are Junction residents, but they don’t check as regularly as they should,” she said.
Modise confirmed that it had become easier for students to have their friends stay over because security guards do not call students to alert them that their visitors had stayed past the allowed visiting time.
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