News / National
Zimbabwe Prison Services struggles to feed prisoners
03 Mar 2014 at 07:03hrs | Views
The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services last week failed to take prisoners to courts around Harare citing the shortage of fuel.
ZPCS spokesperson chief superintendent Ms Elizabeth Banda said the service did not have enough fuel to sustain operations.
She added that the security organisation was also facing challenges in feeding the prisoners as it had not yet received rations.
"Money allocated to us is not sufficient so we would rather prioritise.
"In this case we have to feed the prisoners first before we think of fuel to transport them to court.
"If a miracle does not happen by the end of the day, then it means that tomorrow it's the same story because the truth of the matter is that we do not have fuel.
"Since January our allocations are not coming in as expected. Prisoners should go to court and it is our mandate to take them there hence it is a disadvantage on the part of an accused person," she said.
Responding to the challenge, the Judicial Service Commission's secretary Justice Rita Makarau said such a situation creates backlogs.
"Prisoners are an important stakeholder in our system and in the absence of prisoners, there is nothing we can do.
"There is need for every player to be well funded for the justice system to flow because such a problem creates backlog and it adds on to delays that everybody has been complaining of," she said.
At the Harare Magistrates' Court, police officers were ordered to take back new accused persons in fresh matters to the police holding cells.
A prison guard who spoke on condition of anonymity said they were ordered not to take accused persons who would have been denied bail into the court's holding cells.
A prosecutor who refused to be named expressed displeasure over the issue.
"We were supposed to deal with accused persons who are in custody. We failed to and had to remand them to another date and it creates backlog," she said.
ZPCS spokesperson chief superintendent Ms Elizabeth Banda said the service did not have enough fuel to sustain operations.
She added that the security organisation was also facing challenges in feeding the prisoners as it had not yet received rations.
"Money allocated to us is not sufficient so we would rather prioritise.
"In this case we have to feed the prisoners first before we think of fuel to transport them to court.
"If a miracle does not happen by the end of the day, then it means that tomorrow it's the same story because the truth of the matter is that we do not have fuel.
"Since January our allocations are not coming in as expected. Prisoners should go to court and it is our mandate to take them there hence it is a disadvantage on the part of an accused person," she said.
"Prisoners are an important stakeholder in our system and in the absence of prisoners, there is nothing we can do.
"There is need for every player to be well funded for the justice system to flow because such a problem creates backlog and it adds on to delays that everybody has been complaining of," she said.
At the Harare Magistrates' Court, police officers were ordered to take back new accused persons in fresh matters to the police holding cells.
A prison guard who spoke on condition of anonymity said they were ordered not to take accused persons who would have been denied bail into the court's holding cells.
A prosecutor who refused to be named expressed displeasure over the issue.
"We were supposed to deal with accused persons who are in custody. We failed to and had to remand them to another date and it creates backlog," she said.
Source - The Herald
