President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Saturday inaugurated an inmates’ skills acquisition and reformation centre on the premises of the Nsawam Prisons in the Eastern Region.
The 320-bed capacity fully furnished facility, built by the Church of Pentecost, is to enable prisoners to be re-integrated into society.
The facility contains an infirmary, a visitors’ lodge with a shop, an administration block attached with ancillary offices, an ICT laboratory, tailoring and carpentry workshops, a chapel with musical instruments, and a baptistry.
It also has a kitchen with a dining hall, soccer pitch, and volleyball court, among others, all fitted with a CCTV installation.
The President, who was on the second leg of a three-day working visit to some parts of the Eastern Region, said it was necessary to develop the skills and talents of the inmates of Ghana’s prisons.
That, he said, was not only a place of correction and punishment but also a place for rehabilitation and reformation.
The Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, said Christians must not only lead and usher people to heaven but must also show interest in people’s livelihood on earth by making them useful to society.
He said he was happy that over 40 inmates had been enrolled in a non-formal literacy education, which began in August this year, and that many of them were turning new pages in their lives by accepting Jesus Christ as their saviour.
Apostle Nyamekye said in a bid to further assist to decongest the prisons, the church had initiated a rescue effort by paying the fines owed by inmates on default warrants to have them released, with 42 inmates from the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons, Nsawam Female Prisons, Ho Central Prisons and the James Camp Prisons already benefiting.
Earlier, the Director General of the Ghana Prisons Service, Isaac Egyir, said the service called for support from corporate and religious organisations, as well as individuals, to complement government efforts to address the challenges in the prisons.
Beyond that, he said the service was expanding agriculture and imparting various artisanal skills to inmates.
The Chief of Aburi, Otoobour Djan Kwasi, praised the church for constructing the facility.
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