By Wezzie Gausi:
Centre for Human Rights, Education, Advice and Assistance (Chreaa) has said prisons will continue to face financial challenges as the 2024-25 budget allocation to the prison department is not enough.
In the 2024-25 financial year, the department has been allocated K33.8 billion, which is 33.3 percent higher than the amount allocated to it in the 2023-24 financial year, when the department got K25.3 billion.
Chreaa Executive Director (ED) Victor Mhango told The Daily Times that prisons have been neglected for a long time.
“We have gone through the budget statement and I must say that we are not impressed again with the allocation going to prisons. We are all aware of the problem of hunger that prisons are facing. With this allocation, we are not sure if inmates are safe,” Mhango said.
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Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation ED Michael Kaiyatsa concurred with Mhango, saying there is a need for the government to increase the amount of money allocated to the department.
“We should be respecting the human rights of these people when we are allocating resources to them. These are the people that rely on the government 100 percent for food and all other needs,” Kaiyatsa said.
Secretary to the Treasury Betchani Tchereni said the prisons service has received a 33 percent increase in the allocations, receiving about K33 billion in total, from around K23 billion in the previous one.
He said it is important to understand that there is no vote at all which has received what would be termed as enough.
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“We can do better but increasing the rate of the allocation by 33 percent should be commendable, more so when you consider that, over and above this allocation, there is also an allocation through the Ministry of Agriculture for prisons to continue and improve/extend their mega farming [activities]. Perhaps we should be discussing the issue of what we can do with the harvests, thus there is a need for reflection on that,” Tchereni said.
Prison spokesperson Chimwemwe Shaba was yet to respond to our questions.
