Tanzanian MP challenges Cabinet Minister to spend a night in prison

Mlimba MP Godwin Kunambi has challenged Constitutional and Legal Affairs minister Palamagamba Kabudi to spend a night in a prison to appreciate the suffering inmates are subjected to.

Kunambi said in Parliament on Wednesday when debating the Constitutional and Legal Affairs ministry’s 2021/22 budget estimates that there is no point in the minister visiting prisons briefly because he cannot know the hardships prisoners and remanded people go through.

"When the minister visits prisons he should not just look around for a few minutes and leave. He should at least spend a night so that when he leaves in the morning he will have learnt a thing or two about what is really going on in those places,” he said.

Kunambi added that there was a problem with the way laws are being applied in Tanzania.

He said there are people who are supposed to be charged with minor, bailable offences, but who end up facing trumped-up economic sabotage charges that are not bailable.