We need more money - Prisons Service

Deputy National Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Ghana Prisons Service, Francis Agyiri Kwakye has bemoaned the amount of feeding rate allocated to prisoners, making it extremely difficult for officials to feed inmates.

In an interview with Nyankonton Mu Nsem he said, government only allocates GHC 1.80Gp for the welfare of a prisoner per day- this amount he said caters for both breakfast, lunch and dinner.

It emerged at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sitting yesterday that, the Nsawam Government Hospital had cut healthcare to inmates due to a debt of over GHC 80, 000.

The prison service made a request of ?62,000,000. But only ?14,000,000 million was approved by parliament to run the Service. So far, ¢10,000,000 out of the ?14,000,000 has been released to the service by government.

This the Deputy PRO noted makes it extremely difficult for them to provide the needed care for inmates.

Responding to a question as to whether the service cannot embark on farming to feed the inmates, Mr. Francis Agyiri noted that, although they have some prison farms, yet they are faced with a number of challenges making it difficult for them to depend on rainfall agriculture, therefore it will be prudent for them to enter into mechanized farming to increase their yields.

He explained that, one major challenge also making it difficult for them to engage inmates in farming activities are because, some of them are hardcore criminals who cannot be used for farming activities.

Mr. Francis Agyiri added that, they lack the needed logistics to assist the service should they decide to invest in merchandise farming hence government must assist them in that regard.