Africa-Press – Cape verde. The Minister of Justice admitted today that there were delays in the process of recruitment and appointment of new prison agents, but ensured the interest of the Government in holding and finalizing the contest within the legal framework.
Joana Rosa was speaking to the press at the meeting of the Committees to Combat and Prevent Violence and Commission on Combating Organized Crime held this morning in the city of Praia, ensuring that there is no precarious salary since the legal framework ensures that after the tendering procedure there is a six-month training period.
According to the same source, ending the training period, in principle the trainees should enter an internship, highlighting that in the period of formation the law confers a subsidy of 21,000 escudos and for internship period a subsidy remuneration of 80 percent (%).
As explained, initially the plan was to recruit 50 prison agents, so it was done all the logistics assembly, space for training and also to house the agents from other islands.
Joana Rosa said that there was the whole process and that a detailed report should be presented from all the trainers at the end and that there was a delay.
“Because with the change in the Directorate-General, the new director, because the director general until then left for other appointments and we had to try to locate these trainers, ask for reports, minutes of the various meetings and sessions and we then have to enter the internship phase now,” he clarified, noting that the stage phase was not carried out because of the change in the number from 50 to 100 agents.
According to the minister, there are eight phases and in each the processes are submitted to the approval of the Ministry of Public Administration.
“There was this delay yes, but we signed an agreement with the union by 30 June the situation would be regularized and that is what we did. We did everything so that the report could have been approved, so that from the 30th the contracts for start of internship could be available in the chains,” he reiterated.
Joana Rosa stressed that there are unions demanding the beginning of the internship period after the end of the formation, noting that there is a regulation that must be followed together with the consensus among other institutions.
“It is in the interests of the Ministry of Justice, it is appropriate to be clear, realization and finalization of the contest, as you know we have insufficient numbers of prison security agents in our prisons, which is why we have extended the recruitment number,” he recalled, advancing that the graduates will only acquire the status of agents by appointment and approval of the probationary internship.
“There have been delays that are not only the fault of the Ministry, but also of other entities, we will do everything so that these agents can start the probationary stage, it is 12 months, the requirements are different from the training phase, then there will be a final monitoring and evaluation for the recruitment and appointment of these agents” concluded.
The Union of General Industry, Food, Civil Construction and Services (Siacsa) denounced on Friday, 12, alleged irregularities by the Ministry of Justice, regarding the probationary internships and illegal contracts with recent prison agents.
There are 99 prison agents that, as explained by Gilberto Lima, have already carried out the probationary stage of seven months and are now being forced to perform this same internship for another year.
If the Ministry of Justice does not settle the pending, “a just demand”, according to the president of Siacsa, the prison agents will go on strike.
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