Prison officers urge to work harder

Ankaful, Dec 31, GNA - Deputy Director of Prison (DSP) and the Regional Commander of the Ankaful Prison, Mr Oppong Kofi Tweneboa-Kodua, has appealed to prison officers to be hard working and eschew wrong doings to enable the service to attain higher heights.

"We have to work harder for the government and people of Ghana to know that we are not a waste pipe but a very important institution which play's an important role in maintaining peace and order".

Mr Tweneboa-Kodua was speaking on Friday at the first awards ceremony and end of year party for officers at Ankaful main prison camp. The occasion was also used to send off, Deputy Superintendent Emmanuel Ansah, Senior Chief officers John Enyan, Emmanuel Denkyira and Senior Regimental Sergeant Major Ernest Gyakari who have retired from the service.

They were each presented with a pocket of roofing sheets and cash of 500,000 cedis.

He expressed concern that 2006 saw an unhealthy relationship among some of the officers at the Prison camp that resulted in disunity, anonymous letter writing, apathy to work and general breakdown of discipline and urged them to enter the new year as changed officers and men and live up to their task.

Mr Tweneboa-Kodua said despite the problems the camp faced, its performance in terms of safe custody, which is the prime function of the service, was excellent since non of the three stations - the main camp, annex and the contagious prison - had internal escape but expressed regret that annex had three escapes whilst on external labour. He commended them for improving upon the farming activities at the various stations that generated 54.5 million cedis.

On training for the inmates he said the Association of Bankers donated 35 million cedis to the prison for the manufacturing of alata soap and this started four weeks ago.

Mr Tweneboa-Kodua appealed to institutions to come to the aid of the prison to enable it train the inmates to acquire employable skills. Mr Asah thanked the staff of the prison for the gifts and called for unity and peaceful co-existence among the working staff.

He said if there was disunity and lack of cooperation among the staff it would be very difficult for them to impact any meaningful knowledge to the inmates who are under their care.