Catholic Archbishop donates to prisons

Kumasi, Dec. 28, GNA - The Most Reverend Peter Akwasi Sarpong, Catholic Archbishop of Kumasi on Saturday presented assorted items to prisons in Ashanti and Tarkwa in the Western Region as part of his yearly donations to the prisons.

He also donated cash of one million cedis to the male and female sections of the Kumasi Central Prisons and one million cedis to the Manhyia Prison.

The items included 64 blankets, assorted soap worth more than two million cedis, large quantities of balls of kenkey, jollof rice, 'kokonte', five bags of gari, two bags of maize, several bales of second hand clothes.

The rest included a video deck worth one million cedis to the Tarkwa Prison, one million cedis worth of paint to the Obuasi Prison and roofing sheets estimated at one million cedis for the Ahinsan Prison Camp near Dompoase in the Adansi North District.

While the items were brought from the various parishes in the Kumasi metropolis, Mr and Mrs Osei Agyemang, a couple in business, donated choir robes and a set of musical instruments worth several millions of cedis to the inmates of the Kumasi Central Prison to enhance their church services.

The staff and students of the Saint Louis Training College also presented 18 tins of canned fish, 60 blankets and 12 boxes of soap to the female section of the Central Prisons.

Making the presentation on behalf of the Archbishop, Mr Martin Nyame, Catechist of Ashanti ACRONS, said the gesture was the Archbishop's and the Catholic Church's social responsibility to the needy in society.

He said the church had established church services in all prison camps in Ashanti to help the inmates also to have access to the word of God so as to enhance their reformation.

Assistant Superintendent of Prisons (ASP) Reverend Father Martin Paddy, Chaplain of the Ashanti Prisons, who received the items, commended all those who contributed towards the donation and urged others to emulate their gesture.