Prisons Service gets GH¢181,934 to cover NHIS(Page 35) July 11, 2008

Story: Michael Donkor

THE government has made available GH¢181,934 to the Prisons Service towards the registration of its officers and inmates with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Minister of the Interior, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor, has said.
He said it was expected that the measure would improve the health status of prisoners and personnel of the service and their dependants.
Dr Addo-Kufuor said this when he paid a working visit to the Headquarters of the Prisons Service in Accra on Thursday.
He was accompanied by the Deputy Minister of the Interior, Mr K. Tahiru Hammond, and the Minister of State at the Interior Ministry, Nana Obiri Boahen.
Dr Addo-Kufuor said the government had just taken delivery of 55 vehicles under a package from Paramount Logistics Corporation of South Africa for distribution to selected prisons.
He said the package included workshop tools and equipment, which would soon be installed to revamp the carpentry and other workshops in the prisons.
Dr Addo-Kufuor said the government had also tasked the Prisons Council to review the service conditions and come up with appropriate recommendations for consideration.
He said a technical committee had been set up, under the guidance of the Prisons Service Council, to come up with appropriate designs for a new James Fort Prison, a new prison officers training school and a new senior correctional centre with modern dormitories, classrooms, workshops with machinery and s gymnasium.
He said the gesture was aimed at affording the inmates the chance to undergo trade training, formal education and engage in sporting activities.
He said barracks accommodation for staff of institutions to be relocated would be provided with social services like markets, hospitals and entertainment centres, before steps were taken for the re-location.
Dr Addo-Kufuor said the service had been linked up to the Department of Social Welfare to take custody of children born to imprisoned pregnant women whose relatives were unable to provide custody for the babies.
He said a second intervention was the setting up of a mother and baby friendly centre at the Nsawam Female Prison to provide a temporary but more congenial atmosphere for babies who were born to such mothers.
Dr Addo-Kufuor said in accordance with its programme of reformation and rehabilitation of inmates, the Ghana Prisons Service, in partnership with the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), had donated television sets, computers and their accessories, stationery and furniture to help establish a senior high school at the Nsawam Medium Security Prison, while the President’s Special Initiative on Distance Learning had also been established in four major prisons, namely, Nsawam, Kumasi, Tamale and Wa.
He said additionally, the Senior Correctional Centre, formerly the Borstal Institute, had started running courses of the National Vocational Training Institute.
He said last year 16 inmates who sat for Trade Test Grade II Examination had passed.
The Director-General of the Prisons Service, Mr William Asiedu, gave the assurance that personnel of the service would continue to give of their best, despite the constraints they were faced with.
He said the service would collaborate with sister security agencies to ensure that the justice system was upheld.