Government Should Prioritize The Ghana Prisons Service And The Conditions Of Service Of Officers.

The government, Prisons Service Council, Council of State, and the Directorate of the Ghana Prisons Service are doing their best for the noble service; but a lot of gaps need to be covered. Officers and their families need better working conditions.

The following are some of the dire conditions officers are facing that your good office needs to help officers on.

RENT ALLOWANCE
Regulation 70 (1) of the CI 92 of the Ghana Prisons Service states that; The Service shall at the end of each month, pay a rent allowance to an officer who does not live in an accommodation provided by the Service.
The rent is 20% of the officer’s basic salary.
As it stands, officers who live in rented apartments take the allowance every quarter instead of the monthly stipulated in the CI 92. Even with that, officers took the last part of their rent allowance for the year 2021 in August 2022.
Affected officers and their families who are facing embarrassing rants from their landlords are yet to receive a dime for rent this year!
We are by this statement calling on the Prisons Service Council, Council of State, Parliament of Ghana, Ministry of Finance and the Prisons Service Directorate, to as a matter of urgency release funds for our payments of rent and also work on paying it every month, as it is done for our colleagues in the Ghana Police Service.

CONTAGIOUS DISEASE ALLOWANCE
Regulation 72 (1) also states clearly that, The Service shall pay a Contagious Disease allowance to an officer who is deployed to work in a prison designated as being contagious.
It will be 10% of the basic salary of the officer.
Currently, the Ankaful Contagious Disease Prison is not the only facility in Ghana that takes care of inmates with contagious diseases such as, Chicken Pox, Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Leprosy and yaws among others.
With the exception of the Prisons Headquarters and the Prison Officers Training School, all other prison facilities in the country have inmates who are suffering from the above mentioned contagious diseases which are easily transferred to officers and subsequently to their families.
During the peak of the COVID-19, we expected the Prisons Directorate, Service Council and the Council of State to take that opportunity to push the government to roll out the allowance to all officers but nothing like that has happened up until now.
We are by this statement calling on your good office to use facilitate this allowance to be paid to all officers.

PRISONS HOSPITAL
The need has come for the noble service to have its own state of the art modern hospital that will cater for officers, civilians, and inmates. The Infirmaries in the facility are good for the prisoners but the Ghana Prisons Service needs more than an infirmary.

OPERATIONAL VEHICLES
We are also calling on the government to kindly pay attention to the inadequate vehicles in the Service. Unlike our sister agencies who have enough operational vehicles, almost 90 % of prison facilities can only boast of a small salon car as a Command vehicle whiles all other operational errands are done by hiring Taxis, school buses and commercial sprinters, for transferring of prisoners and convening officers to events.
Finally, if these concerns are met, the morale of officers will be ignited which will lead to an issue free working environment.
Thank you.

SOURCE: OFFICERS WITH THE SERVICE AT HEART.