No special cells for prisoners in any of the country's prisons

Accra, July 24, GNA - The Minister for The Interior, Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyemang has said that there were no special cells for any convicted prisoner in any of the country's prisons.

He said all offenders were equal before the law and it was, therefore, not necessary to create any VIP cells for anybody whether a political prisoner or not and that the idea was to treat all convicts humanely as a way of reforming them.

The Minister said this in answer to a supplementary question asked by Mr E.T. Mensah, NDC- Ningo/Prampram in Parliament on Thursday as to whether there were any VIP cells in any of the country's prisons. Mr Seth Dankwa Wiafe, NPP-Akwapim South, had earlier asked the Minister what steps the Ministry was taking to improve conditions in Police cells and what plans it had to assist accused persons, who are remanded into prisons custody with the payment of their medical bills, feeding and transportation.

Mr Owusu-Agyemang said a survey had been undertaken of the state of the Police cells and the report, which was being finalised, indicated that they were in poor state.

He said the Ministry, however, realised that the state of the Police cells could not be separated from the state of Police stations themselves as such a comprehensive approach was to be used to tackle the problem.

The Minister said the report would be made available to the House so that collectively a way could be found to address them since the problem affected the security of the state and the human rights of individuals, who found themselves in the cells.

Mr Owusu-Agyemang said in respect of medical bills for remand prisoners in prison custody, the situation was the same for convicted prisoners and it was primarily the responsibility of government to take care of the health needs of all the prisoners.

He said unfortunately while prisoners were treated free of charge with respect to their consultation, their drugs and other treatment had to be paid for by the Prison Authorities with surgical operations and other medical treatment for some prisoners running into millions of cedis.

The Minister said the budgetary allocation to the Prison Service was generally insufficient to address all the medical bills and would welcome where families and friends of prisoners assisted to pay for such bills.

Mr Owusu-Agyemang said occasionally the Prison Service received gifts of drugs from various non-governmental organisations for the treatment of inmates and at times some officers used their own money to buy prescribed drugs for sick prisoners.

He said he was discussing with the Ministry of Health how the health needs of prison inmates could be addressed and would discuss with the Ministry for Finance and Economic Planning the possibility of increasing the budgetary allocation to the Prison Service to cater for the health needs of inmates.

The Minister said in respect to the feeding of remand prisoners they were treated in the same way as convicted prisoners and fed by Prison authorities.

Mr Owusu-Agyemang said transportation was a major problem facing the Prison Service with a number of them not having vehicles of their own and in many case Prison Commanders had to travel by public transportation on official duties.

Nsawam Medium Security Prison was the only prison in the country that has a bus to convey remand prisoners to court in other prisons prisoners are transported to courts by public transport against security guidelines.

Mr Owusu-Agyemang said discussions were going on to improve on the transportation needs of the Service and proposals would soon be submitted to Cabinet for consideration.

Mr Kosi Kedem, NDC- Hohoe South, asked the Minister whether he was aware that library facilities were non-existent in the country's prisons and the Minister conceded that it was true and that it was only Nsawam Prison that had few books but gave the assurance that a programme to seek for support to equip the prisons was underway to make the prisons a place for reformation.