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The Regional Commander of the Wa Central Prison in the Upper West Region has appealed to the government and benevolent bodies to support the prison to expand its workshop, and retool it to help enhance the reformation of inmates.
According to the Assistant Director of Prison (ADP), Mr James Bongfudeme Mwinyelle, only 20 out of over 200 inmates at the prison were engaged in skills training due to the limited training facilities and materials.
In an interview with Ghanaian Times here on Friday he said the limited space at the workshop had made it almost impossible to enroll more inmates onto the various skills training available, to them to fit into the job market when they were released from prison.
“We don’t have enough facilities to train inmates in skill training, we have five inmates at the tailoring, 15 at the weaving as a whole which means that only 20 out of a little over 200 inmates are engaged in some kind of skilled training, the vast majority are not doing anything which is not good,” he said.
ADP Mwinyelle said the prison also produced smocks of different sizes and colours which were as quality as those on the market.
He said at the tailoring side, the prison officers and other security services relied on the services of the inmates to sew their official uniforms.
He believed that the skills training was relevant as it would equip the inmates with employable skills after serving their prison sentences.
The Commander has, therefore, called on the public to come to the aid of the Wa prisons with logistics equipment and tools to enable them to expand the services and train more inmates.
ADP Mwinyelle noted that due to inadequate cells at the prison, it was difficult to separate “hardened criminals” from those serving short- term sentences.
He said the situation was worrying as the hardened criminals could negatively influence those who were serving jail terms for minor offences.
“There are no spaces in the cells so we are unable to separate remand prisoners from convicts, they are all together, so overcrowding is a major challenge here, the situation is not good but we do not have a choice,” he said.
The Commander expressed worry about the difficulty officers had to go through when they had to transport inmates from the cell to various locations for community work.
He said they mostly had to walk together with the inmates due to the lack of vehicles and other means of transport.
ADP Mwinyelle, therefore, added an appeal to government and benevolent organizations to help provide pick-up vehicles and tricycles to the prison to enhance movement of inmates in Wa.
He further made a call for an increment in the feeding money provided for the inmates after reiterating that the GH¢1.80 for three square meals a day for each inmate was woefully inadequate, and put the prison officers in a difficult position in trying to provide regular meals for the inmates.
The Commander commended religious bodies, individuals and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who had constantly supported inmates over the years.
FROM RAFIA ABDUL RAZAK WA
