Prisoners to be paid for work

Apr 13, 2011

THE Government is planning to revive a scheme where in¬mates are paid for their labour outside government work.

By Mary Karugaba

THE Government is planning to revive a scheme where in¬mates are paid for their labour outside government work.

Simon Kimono, the Prisons under-secretary, told MPs on the public accounts committee that if approved, the scheme would start next financial year when the money is included in the budget.

Under the scheme, prisoners will be paid between sh100 and sh500 per day every time they work.

According to Kimono, skilled prisoners are entitled to sh500, semi-skilled ones sh250 and the non-skilled sh100.

This means if an unskilled inmate is deployed to work ev¬eryday, he will earn sh3,000 a month.

The money will be banked on their account until the end of their term.

“We are trying to streamline the operation of the scheme and also harmonise it with other regulations. There is a taskforce put in place to study this matter and give necessary guidance to top management,” Kimono told MPs.

“The task force presented its first draft to the Prisons council and some amendments were made and they are waiting for the second draft,” he added.

“When prisoners are de¬ployed to do private work, the person pays government, which also pays them remu¬neration for work done. This money will help them start a new life after prison. Accumu¬latively, it’s a lot of money,” he added.

They are about 32,000 in¬mates in the country and 58% percent of these are on re¬mand, while 42% are on con¬viction.

The Prisons Act provides for an entitlement to a prisoner to undertake meaningful remu¬nerated employment during the term in prison.

Prisons engage prisoners in various activities outside gov¬ernment work such as farm¬ing, tailoring, carpentry and healthcare.

When the MPs complained that the money paid was too little compared to the work done, Kimono said: “That is what the law says.”

The officials were respond¬ing to concerns raised by the MPs that prisons were making inmates work for long without pay, yet the law provides that they should be given remu¬neration.

“Last week, I found prisoners working on a road project. This project contract was given to a private company. Prisoners are also deployed to do work in farms for free,” Okello Odu¬man complained.

Oduman warned that the Prisons risk being sued if they do not pay inmates who, ac¬cording to the law, are entitled to payment.

The MPs also heard that the Prisons department has writ¬ten to Masindi district town council to relocate the Muslim cemetery from their land.

Prisons in 1998 signed a memorandum of understand¬ing with the town council to swap the land for expansion.

“Later we realised that there was a cemetery. We have writ¬ten to the council to relocate it. We have also asked the Gov¬ernment valuer to value the land,” Kimono said.

MPs Tindamanyire Kabondo and Grace Oburu wondered how they could swap the land without knowing its value.

“You made losses. You ex¬changed valuable government land. Your expansion project has failed to take off because there is an encumbrance,” Ka¬bondo said.


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