Former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni, due to report to Pollsmoor prison by Thursday, will be treated like any other prisoner and be subjected to a strip search and have his fingerprints taken.

"We don't have a category of more important or less important inmates," Correctional Services ministerial spokesperson Luphumzo Kebeni said on Tuesday.

On Monday the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed Yengeni's application for leave to appeal against a four-year fraud sentence.

Yengeni was expected to serve only eight months.

On Tuesday, Kebeni said it was too early to say whether or not Yengeni would be transferred from the notorious Pollsmoor prison, with its entrenched prison gang culture.

A prison official, who wanted to remain anonymous, said high-profile inmates were usually put in single cells for their own protection.

Yengeni's attorney, Marius du Toit, said he had "no idea" when exactly his client would report to Pollsmoor, but said if he failed to do so by Thursday a warrant of arrest would be issued.

Attempts to contact Yengeni's wife, Lumka, failed.

Her personal assistant, Thando, speaking from Mrs Yengeni's Milnerton constituency office said: "No comment will be given".

Phone calls to the Yengeni family home in Gugulethu, Cape Town, were not answered.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Independent Online.