By Iddi Yire
Accra, July 15, GNA – Alhaji Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, the Minister for the Interior/National Security, has said that the feeding grant of GH₵1.80 per prison inmate is woefully inadequate.
“As you may be aware, the feeding allocation for inmates is paid at GH₵1.80 less than GH₵2.00, which is woefully inadequate,” the Minister stated in his Mid-Year Review Report for the Ministry of the Interior/National Security at a press conference at the Presidency in Accra.
The press conference, which was organised by the Presidency Communication Bureau, dubbed “The Governance Accountability Series”, is part of efforts by the Government to deepen transparency and accountability in governance.
Alhaji Muntaka said the government was venturing into agriculture to improve the feeding of the nation’s prison inmates.
He said the government had secured some funding to undertake 5,000-layer poultry project, adding the inmates had cultivated about 1,654 acres of crops.
This initiative, he said was ably supported by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture through the supply of equipment and inputs.
The Minister said the Ghana Prison Service had implemented juvenile and secondary education initiative, supporting education continuity for juveniles and inmates.
He noted that the Damongo Correctional Facility had been completed, expanding correctional facilities and reducing overcrowding.
Alhaji Muntaka highly commended The Church of Pentencost for its unique role in supplementing the Government’s effort in the area of construction of prison facilities for the nation.
“I want to take this opportunity once again to thank The Pentecost Church for the great job that they are doing in supporting the Ghana Prison Service,” Alhaji Muntaka said.
Alhaji Muntaka said, he met projects at various stages of completion, five camp prisons, and the Damongo one that had just been completed making it the fifth.
“And if a church could come to the aid of the Ghana Prison Service this much, I want to take this opportunity to encourage all of us, citizens, individuals, business, corporate organization, to come to the aid of the security services, especially the prisons, who have huge challenges in managing the over 14,000 inmates, including foreigners that are in there,” he said.
He said the Ghana Prison Service had also commenced drafting a 24-Hour Economic Proposal, aligning prison operations with national productivity goals.
He said the Service had also launched a digital literacy programme under the One Million coders, and equipping inmates, officers, and dependents with digital skills.
He said there was an ongoing collaboration with the Youth Employment Agency for prison support staff recruitment to augment human resources’ need of the service for non-custodial duties.
He said in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Ghana Immigration Service, the Ministry was removed and repatriated over 2,241 street beggars to their countries.
The exercise, he said, had restored public order in urban centers while supporting vulnerable population with humane intervention.
“We are mapping our strategy that will make sure that we eliminate all these challenges on all our streets, not only in Accra but across the cities in our country,” he said.
Furthermore, he said they had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Youth Development for security agencies internship, enhancing youth employability while supporting agencies operations.
He said the interns would be deployed across the police, the prisons and the fire services; declaring that the first batch of these interns would commence training on the 16th of July.
GNA
Christian Akorlie