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The government has increased the daily feeding fees for inmates of the country�s prisons from the current GHC 0.60 to GHC 1.80. The Minister of the Interior, Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, who announced this in Parliament yesterday explained that provisions had been made in the 2012 Budget to cater for the increase in the feeding allowance of the prisoners. The increase followed a proposal the Prison Service through the Prison Council forwarded to the Cabinet for the increase of the feeding grant of the inmates. He was in the House to answer a question posed by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Amenfi Central, Mr George Kofi Arthur who wanted to know when the feeding grant for prison inmates would be increased from 60 pesewas to at least GHC1.20 to improve on their health. �The present daily 60 pesewas feeding grant, which has been provided for the past 10 years is unacceptable�, he said adding that the increase was a modest beginning to improve on nutrition of the prison inmates. Dr Kunbuor stated that based on the advice from the experts, it was deemed that the GHC1.80 would be able to provide �decent� three square meals for the inmates prisons. He explained that following the approval by the Cabinet, the proposal was currently receiving positive attention at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. Meanwhile, to effectively manage the inmates� database, the Ghana Prisons Service was in the process of acquiring 50 multimodal jump kits which would be used to capture inmates� data including their biometric features during admissions to the prisons. In order to make the national electronic database very effective, all the prison establishments would have to be interconnected by wide range network (WAN). Answering another question posed by Mr Arthur, Dr Kunbuor told the House that currently with the assistance of some donor agencies and the Bureau of National Communication (BNC), establishment of the WAN was underway. He explained that the first phase which would interconnect the Prisons Headquarters, Nsawam Medium Prison, the Prison Officers Training School, Kumasi and the Ankaful Prisons was expected to be completed by the end of the year. When it was his turn, MP for Sunyani East, Mr Kwasi Ameyaw-Cheremeh, asked the minister about measures being taken to ensure the decongestion of prisons in the country. Answering the question, Mr Kunbuor stated that measures put in place include the institution of the Justice for all programme, the completion of the Ankaful Maximum Security Prison, the conversion of a part of the James Camp Prison in Accra into a remand prison and the establishment of Settlement Camp Prisons. He explained that the first phase of the Ankaful Maximum Security Prison with intake capacity of 2,000 is completed and ready for inauguration adding that when that was done, the high risk prisoners from across the Central prisons in the country would be reallocated to the maximum security prison. On the establishment of settlement camp prisons, he said a proposal had been made to make it possible for opening of more settlement camp prisons to further reduce the overcrowding in the prisons explaining that currently 10 of such camps had been provided nationwide. In another development, Dr Kunbuor told the House that the transfer of staff of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) in the Eastern Region was part of the nationwide exercise aimed at improving the overall efficiency and performance within the organisation. He explained that reports indicated that many personnel were often absent from office, attended work late or left office before close of day which breached the Public Service rules and went on unchecked because they were in their own indigenous localities. �The nationwide transfers, including those from the Eastern Region were undertaken to check such behaviours and also make the personnel more efficient and resourceful. But members from the Minority side disagreed with the explanation of the minister arguing that the mass transfers were politically motivated since people appointed to replace those who were transferred were also from those localities.