Posted on March, 26, 2019 at 11:02 am
THE government has directed Songwe Prison in Mbeya Region to increase the size of its maize farm from the current 750 to 1,000 acres in order to support feeding inmates and reinforcing the country’s food security.
Home Affairs Deputy Minister Hamad Masauni issued the directive yesterday when he visited the prison, located 30km from Mbeya city central business district (CBD).
Masauni described Songwe Prison as among the ten selected prisons countrywide which have been tasked by the government to produce food. Currently, the prison cultivates 750 acres of maize annually.
He said the government wants prisoners to be fed from food they produce themselves.
Songwe Prison Chief, Peter Anathory attributed failures to meet the target of 1,000 acres to lack of modern farming equipment such as tractors. He said with the tractors they can cultivate enough food to feed their prisoners and a portion of other inmates at different prisons.
He said plans are to apply irrigation to cultivate the remaining 250 acres from a nearby water source.
He said they opted to use tractors to enhance production because using prisoners alone doesn’t permit them cultivate the current 750 acres.
Anathory informed the deputy minister that plans are afoot to cultivate a farm that was earlier used by the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute Uyole (TARI Uyole). He said the farm will be used to cultivate beans.
Last year, President John Magufuli criticized the prisons services to work and provide for themselves.
“You have huge tracts of land in Mbeya, which is idle but every now and again you ask for budgetary support to buy food,” he said.
The president, who did not hide his dissatisfaction with the administration of the prisons services, said he would not allow a situation where prisons officers lacked accommodation while inmates slept in the cells.
He directed the newly appointed Prisons Commissioner General Phaustine Kasike to instil discipline in his junior officers, saying prisoners were given too much leeway and enjoyed some freedoms which are supposed to be out of reach for incarcerated individuals.
The president outlined a few issues he said were what he expected from the new Prisons commissioner general, including restricting some of the freedoms and instilling a work ethic in prisoners.
He said prisoners had to work hard, including making bricks and farming so Prisons staff could have better housing and prisoners feed themselves.
“I do not expect prison staff to lack housing while prisoners have a good place to sleep,” Magufuli said, noting that prisoners were free labour which, if well utilized, could easily end the problem of dilapidated housing for staff and poor rations for inmates.
Magufuli was concerned that even with prisons having a large number of inmates, the department was still asking for budget allocations from the government.
Why should prison wardens and others in the service face a number of challenges despite the abundant free labour available in prisons, the president had demanded.
Source: IPP Media