The group said that since the Federal Government increased the feeding allowance of prison inmates from N200 to N450 (feeding and gas allowance), the authorities have not paid the money to the food contractors.
In a press statement issued by its National Coordinator, Comrade Shadrack Nwokolo and National Secretary, Mr Jimi Sanwo, the group alleged that after a thorough investigation of the state and conditions of prisons in the country, it discovered that food contractors were owed huge sums of monies for the services they rendered to Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) for over two years.
Nwokolo said: “There are about 75,000 inmates scattered in the nation’s prisons. A lot of prisoners would have been dying daily if not for the kind gesture of these patriotic contractors who have not relented in supplying foods to the inmates despite the huge indebtedness of NPS to them in the last two years.
“We gathered that most of the contractors borrowed monies from financial institutions with huge interest rates attached to the borrowing, the group opined.
“We are concerned about the welfare of inmates and that was why we were in the vanguard for the upward review of their daily feeding allowance from #200 per day to #450 per day, which we still admit to be grossly inadequate considering the cost of food items in the country.
“We, therefore, appeal to our listening President, Muhammed Buhari, the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Bello Danbazzau and the prison authorities for a quick intervention over the lingering issue so as to avert an imminent stoppage of food supplies to inmates in Prisons nationwide. The consequences may be fatal, if something is not done urgently to pay up the backlog of outstanding indebtedness to the contractors.
“It saddened our heart that most of these patriotic contractors are struggling to survive while some are facing litigations from banks and microfinance outfits where they got loans to service the inmates in Nigeria Prisons across the country. Some we gathered have lost their lives because of these huge debts”, he said.
When contacted by The AUTHORITY, the Prison’s Public Relations Officer, Francis Enobore said:
“We don’t give contracts to NGOs and if they are agitating for aggrieved contractors then I want to set the records straight that NPS has a very good cordial relationship with its contractors. We hold them in high esteem, but then if any contractor is aggrieved over outstanding payment by the Service, I think the appropriate thing to do is to write the Comptroller-General of Prisons and not to go round media houses to agitate over non-payment.
“Having said that, I do not have such records as to contractors being owned N5.6billion over food supplied to inmates for two years or thereabouts, I want to appeal to them that if what they are saying is substantial then they should go through appreciate authorities as I do not have such records”, he said.
No comments: