Bungoma: The government is making all efforts to improve on the requisite infrastructure in all prisons across the county. Correctional Services PS Dr. Salome Muhia has said this strategy will go a long way in enhancing service delivery by the correctional officers and also improving the living conditions of the inmates.
According to Kenya News Agency, speaking in Bungoma after touring the GK male and female Prisons, Muhia said among the improvements to be made is to increase the number of beds at the prisons countrywide in order to uplift the human dignity of the inmates. The PS noted that the State Department was now ensuring that staff at the headquarters make visits to the offices at the grassroots level to establish the real situations on the ground for effective planning of activities in the sector.
'As senior officers, we no longer remain behind desks, we are out in the field, listening and engaging directly with those on the ground,' she said. Muhia commended officers at the Bungoma GK Prisons for planting trees in large numbers at the institution, saying this noble idea had conserved the local environment in line with the Presidential directive to plant 15 billion trees in the Country by 2032.
At the same time, she said the Department had put in place measures to ensure that inmates are registered with the Social Health Authority (SHA). 'At the Bungoma GK prisons, 50 percent of the inmates are already registered and we are still processing for the others, and in the next six months, all of them will have been listed,' added Muhia. However, the PS noted that the government was facing challenges during registration as some of the inmates did not have the national identification card, an issue that was delaying the entire process, but the Department was working closely with that of Registration of Persons to ensure the success of the exercise.
Muhia also commended the management of the Bungoma GK prisons for utilizing part of their idle land for agricultural activities, to produce food for consumption at the facility. Meanwhile, the PS has called on Kenyans to have a positive attitude towards those released from prisons after serving their jail sentences by offering them jobs and unconditional re-integration back into society, without any form of discrimination.
The Bungoma County Commissioner Thomas Sankei accompanied the PS during her tour of the correctional facility.