The Ghana Prisons Service (GPS) has called on Ghanaians to embrace and support the “One Ghana Cedi Agenda” initiative of the service.
The Director-General (DG) of the GPS, Patience Baffoe-Bonnie, explained that the service had set up the ‘PRISPAS Foundation,’ a fund-raising initiative that encouraged the citizenry to contribute one Ghana cedi every month into the fund.
She said the fund was established to tackle the accommodation challenges confronting the service and also improve the welfare of personnel, assuring transparency and accountability.
Mrs Baffoe-Bonnie made the call when she interacted with the Bono Regional Minister, Joseph Addae Akwaboa, as part of her visit to the region.
She explained that the visit sought to strengthen collaboration between the GPS and the various Regional Coordinating Councils (RCC) towards reforming and improving the welfare of the service personnel.
She said the GPS was undergoing reforms to reposition the service to contribute more to advancing national security for progressive development.
Mrs Baffoe-Bonnie expressed concern about encroachment of prison lands and disputes, saying that the situation was affecting several prison facilities nationwide, and called for support from the RCC towards protecting prison lands and properties.
Director-General (DG) of the GPS said the implementation of the GPS flagship reform initiative dubbed the “Think Prisons 360 Degrees” was progressing, saying the initiative was built on two key pillars of public advocacy and community engagement, as well as economic empowerment.
The public advocacy and community engagement pillar of the initiative intensified public education outreaches in churches and schools to help reshape the perception of the public about the prison service.
Mrs Baffoe-Bonnie said the economic empowerment pillar also sought to create income-generating ventures like aquaculture, prison industries, as leveraging on the government’s ‘Nkoko Nketekete’ initiative for improved food security for the service.
Mr Akwaboa pledged the RCC’s support to secure lands for prison-related projects and also provide fertilisers to support the service agriculture initiative, assuring to facilitate the resumption of work on the construction and completion of an Astroturf project at the Sunyani Central Prisons, initiated by the previous administration.
He called for engagement between the local government and the GPS to enable the latter to access the Poverty Reduction and Intermediate Measures (PRIMA) Fund.
Mr Akwaboa said the RCC remained committed to supporting the construction of a Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compound at the Sunyani Central Prisons, as well as reshaping the access roads to improve infrastructure and operational efficiency of the service.
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