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President John Dramani Mahama has announced government plans to build separate blocks within various prisons across the country, to house persons sent there on remand.

The current practice is that, such persons are mixed up with convicts, a situation that various groups have criticized.

“I have asked that new remand blocks be built in the various prisons so that we can take them into a separate block and not mix them up with convicted prisoners and so we have started the first one in Accra; the contractor appointed has started working and I have asked that the second be built in Kumasi.”

President Mahama made the comment on day two of his accounting to the People tour in the Upper West Region, when he visited the Wa Central Prisons. 

According to him, under the Justice for All program, many remand prisoners have been freed. He however assured that the program will continue to allow for a thorough decongestion of the country’s prisons.

“Some remand prisoners stay as long as two years before their cases are heard and some of them too their cases are never heard so what we did was to go with the Chief Justice under the Justice for All program to appoint a sitting High Court Judge who goes from prison to prison to listen to the cases against remand prisoners, and make a determination on whether to let them out on bail or to keep them there.”

The new blocks to house remand prisoners is expected to be replicated across the country.