‘It’s awful when you see it’ - Ex-convict describes prison food

In an attempt to give a vivid description of what the ideal routine meal of prison inmates looks like, an ex-convict who served a three-year sentence at the Sunyani Central Prison has said their food was awful to look at.

Alexander Wiredu who was sentenced on charges of defrauding by false pretences, told GhanaWeb that, inmates were always served the same meal every single day and they barely felt the impact of public donations.

He said the only instances where their meals were diversified was during the festive seasons when some religious bodies and philanthropists visited and feted with them.

“When the church people and Muslims come in that day you feel at home,” he said.

Recounting his typical daily routine at the Sunyani Central Prison in an interaction on #SayItLoud on GhanaWeb TV, he said “about 7:00 – 7:30 am you go in for your so-called porridge… it’s our ordinary corn dough porridge but it but it’s awful when you see it. You’ll not even feel that it is corn dough.”

He further added “every morning you get corn dough porridge…since I went there it never changed. In the afternoon we take Banku (a local Ghanaian food made with both cassava and corn dough) and groundnut soup.”

And for supper, he added, they were once again given Banku with groundnut soup.

However, once in every week on Wednesdays they were served rice in the afternoon.

Alexander Wiredu also recounted that per the prison schedule, inmates were expected to take their breakfast around 7:30 am, lunch at 11:30 and supper at 3:30pm.

He also noted that some of the inmates were even in the business of selling their meals.