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The Ghana Prisons Service Council is committed to the achievement of safe custody, humane treatment, reformation, rehabilitation and re-integration of inmates to make them responsible, productive, and law-abiding citizens to ensure public safety.

To this end, the Council had launched the project: ‘Efiase’ and a 10-year strategic development plan to transform the Ghana Prisons and make them centres of excellence and the model of Africa.

The Reverend Dr Stephen Wengam, the Chairman of the Council, who told this in an interview with Ghana News Agency in Accra, said the strategic plan sought to raise GHC 25 million annually.

The funds would help to reposition the Prisons Service to effectively perform its functions, which include giving better custody to prisoners, improving the welfare of prisoners and officers, and the rebranding of the Service to project its image.

It would also improve the industrial and agricultural activities of the prisons to make them more financially viable and self-sustaining.

The plan, Rev. Dr Wengam said, would also protect society by executing orders of incarceration in a safe, secure and humane environment for both prisoners and staff.

He said the plan would also protect the lives of prisoners and staff as well as personal and state property.

Rev. Dr Wengam said the Council had entered into private public partnership to get the private sector to help expand infrastructure for female prisoners.

He said the Council had affiliated with the Michigan University to help in the reformation process.

Rev. Dr Wengam commended the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, for donating a large tract of land for the Council to relocate the Kumasi Central Prison.

He also commended the ministries of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, and EPP Books, Prisons’ Ambassadors, Zenith College, The Chinese Embassy, the Chief Justice, the Female Justices Association and the Cedar Mountain Chapel International for their immense contribution towards the Council.

Rev. Dr Wengam expressed the hope that the Council would do everything possible within its power to get the prisons back on track and called for support from all quarters of society towards achieving the goals.