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Lawmakers on Parliament’s committee on defence and internal affairs have given a nod to the appropriation of sh79b in the 2024/2025 proposed budget to feed prisoners.

The proposal was forwarded to Parliament’s budget committee by Nyabushozi County MP, Wilson Kajwengye (NRM), who is also the chairperson of the defence and internal affairs committee.

Defence committee chairperson, Wilson Kajwengye and Ruhinda County MP, Capt. Donozio Mugabe Kahonda. (Photo by Maria Wamala)

For prisoners to feed well, Kajwengye said this week that each prisoner needs at least sh5,000 per day.

This week, the spokesperson of prisons, Frank Baine, said Uganda’s prison population now stands at 77,592 people.  Of these, convicts are 39,602, while those on remand constitute 37,555. Debtors are 435.

Delayed justice dispensation by courts and rising crime across the country, Kajwengye said, largely contributed to the swelling number of prisoners.

“The Uganda Prisons have an approved capacity of 20,996, implying 56,320 prisoners are in excess of the approved capacity, an occupancy rate of 368.2%,” Kajwengye said.

However, some MPs queried the sh79b proposed budget to feed prisoners, noting that the Uganda Prisons Services (UPS) has failed to utilize vast farms allocated to them to grow food crops to feed prisoners.

Chairperson of the budget committee, Patrick Isiagi and his deputy Remigio Achia. (Photo by Maria Wamala)

“In 2022, Uganda Prisons was given 19,200 acres of land on Aswa Ranch. It would be good for the chairperson to inform us on how much Prisons was able to use from this land and the money that was given to them,” Bardege-Layibi MP, Martin Ojara Mapenduzi (Independent) said.

Mapenduzi added that out of the 45,000 acres at Lugore Prison farm in Gulu district, prison chiefs are only utilising 5,000.

Putting this vast land to good use, Mapenduzi said, would cut the sh79b budget to feed prison by half.