The Minister for the Interior, Honourable Ambrose Dery, has paid a maiden working visit to the Prisons Headquarters to acquaint himself with the Service’s operations and to communicate the government’s agenda for it in ensuring that it effectively delivers on its mandate of safe custody, reformation and rehabilitation of offenders.
Interacting with the acting Director-General of Prisons and other Senior Officers at the Prisons Headquarters at Cantonments in Accra recently, the Minister said, ‘the Ghana Prisons Service is a very important and an indispensable agency under the interior ministry as it contributes significantly towards the Ministry’s role of keeping Ghana safe’.
He said his outfit will support Prisons in its reformation and rehabilitation roles to ensure that inmates come out of prisons as better and productive citizens. He added that he will also work with relevant stakeholders towards reducing custodial sentencing to decongest prisons. ‘We need to reduce the time people spend in prison’, He stated.
The Minister stated that the government acknowledges the challenge of staff accommodation and that it is pushing forward a barracks regeneration programme to improve upon the situation. He called on individuals and agencies to partner government to provide decent accommodation for the Service, as well as help resolve its sanitation issues.
Mr. Dery revealed that the government will be building two Hospitals for the Service, one each in the northern and southern sectors of the country to enhance health care delivery for both staff and inmates.
On the government’s policy of One District One Factory, he said vocational skills acquisition will be at the center, which Prisons is already imparting to inmates. ‘So we will have to equip your workshops and agricultural industry so you can fully partake in the policy to generate income to support national development’, he stated.
The Minister applauded the Prisons administration for giving inmates formal education up to the tertiary level and for engaging in various ventures including agriculture to feed inmates. He pledged his outfit’s support in that direction.
The acting Director-General of Prisons, Mr. Patrick Darko Missah in a welcome address was grateful to the Minister and his entourage for the visit. He said the main focus of his administration will be to revamp prison agriculture to generate income, equip inmates with vocational skills to ensure their successful reintegration into society and to professionally develop staff.
According to him, the Service has embraced international best practices in correctional management that has moved it from just warehousing offenders to a vibrant pursuit of reformation and rehabilitation.
‘Apart from that, strenuous efforts have been put in place to offer inmates the needed support that will enable them properly reintegrate into society upon their release from prison’, he stated.
Mr. SKB Rabbles, the Director of Prisons in Charge of Operations and Agriculture, in a presentation gave a brief history and functions of the Service, and mentioned major collaborators and major interventions the Service has embarked on to improve upon prison conditions.
He enumerated the following challenges being faced by staff and inmates: inadequate staff and office accommodation, lack of logistics, inadequate budgetary allocation, poor health care for staff and their wards, and lack of staff training facilities.
Other challenges he mentioned were: lack of modern security equipment, lack of modern farming equipment, inadequate workshops and industrial machines, inadequate space for educational activities, overcrowding in the various prisons, poor ventilation and prolonged pretrial detentions.
The rest were: lack of re-entry support services for inmates, lack of space for recreational activities, poor health care facilities, inadequate feeding allowance for inmates, inadequate facilities for pregnant female inmates and their babies, lack of ante and post natal care, gender specific health care needs, lack of sanitary pads for female inmates and high rate of abandonment by family members.
As a way forward, Mr. Rabbles noted that in line with the Prisons 10-year Strategic plan launched in 2015, ‘the Service will rebrand, leverage on the agricultural and industrial wings for income generation, execute courts orders in line with its safe custody role and reform and rehabilitate inmates’.
It will also seek to protect lives and property, provide decent working conditions of service for staff and recruit, develop and retain high caliber of staff.
The Minister inspected a Guard of Hour, various offices and workshops, and had a durbar with Senior Officers drawn from the Nsawam prisons, Awutu Camp Prison, and from stations in the Greater Accra region at the Senior Officers’ Mess.
The durbar was attended by other dignitaries such as Mr. Henry Quartey, the Deputy Interior Minister; Mrs. Adelaide Annor-Kumi, Chief Director of the Ministry of Interior; Mr. Stephen Cofie, Director of Prisons (DOP) in charge of Finance and Administration.
Others were Mrs. Josephine Fredua-Agyemang, DOP in charge of Welfare; Mr. Kwame Kuma Kpeli, DOP in charge of Human Resource Development; Mr. Leopold KA Ansah, DOP in charge of Technical and Services and other heads of Prisons establishments.
