The Ghanaian government has pledged more funds for the inmates’ feeding programme after prison authorities revealed they were facing challenges feeding convicted persons.
The government has been spending an average of 1.80 Ghanaian Cedi ($0.16) to feed each inmate daily, Isaac Kofi Egyir, the Director General of the Ghana Prisons Service, told a parliamentary accounts committee in the capital Accra on Friday.
As at May 2022, prisons in the West African country had about 14,097 inmates against a capacity of 9,945, the Ghana Prisons Service said at the time.
On Friday, the members of parliament wondered how prison authorities were managing to feed one person on $0.16 only, every day.
Overcrowded facilities
Egyir said the prisons service owns food crop farms, which help in complementing the foodstuff acquired using government funds.
“We have farms all over the country. It is our farms that have stood in since the problems of feeding arose. That is what we are doing to complement the government’s efforts in feeding the inmates,” Egyir said.
Deputy Interior Minister Naana Eyiah said the government will increase the average amount of money allocated for the daily feeding of each inmate, Ghana News Agency reports.
Egyir said overcrowding also remains a key challenge in Ghanaian prisons.
The overcrowding rate had, however, reduced from 72.41% in 2007 to 41.7% as at May 2022.
