AfricaPress-Tanzania: PRISON chiefs who are used to deploying inmates for paid labour on private establishments as part of income generating and self-reliance drives will have to look for other alternatives henceforth.
The government yesterday issued a directive banning such practice, even as some penal institutions had taken it up, deploying the labour to nation-building undertakings and as workforce for hire by private institutions and individuals.
The prohibition order also aired warnings for traffic police officers taking bribes was issued here yesterday by Home Affairs Deputy Minister Khamis Hamza Chillo at a sitting that brought together top officials of the Police, Fire Brigade and Rescue Services, Prisons, Immigration and the National Identification Authority (NIDA).
Chilo said inmates’ labour is governed by specific work procedures, thus heads of prison must abide by these procedures. Doing something else would be in violation of some of the laws, he stated.
“There are reliable reports that inmates were being used to perform private chores including construction of houses of private individuals or work at private farms. I must praise the Prisons Commissioner General, Suleiman Mzee that he has started taking concrete steps to ensure the Prisons Department returns to its original principles,” he specified.
The deputy minister dwelt on acts of bribery among the traffic police officers, delays in investigating cases brought to court, challenges facing NIDA issuance of IDs and delay by firefighters to reach fire incident sites.
“Even with the good work you perform, we must sit down together to assess ourselves to see how to provide better services to the people. It is prohibited for any traffic officer to take bribes; you settle issues with motor vehicle drivers without invoking the laws. In some cases we deliberately conceive trumped up charges to make them appear as offenders.
“If they have committed any offence take legal steps against them. The habit of piling up criminal suspects at police stations on the pretext of uncompleted investigations must stop; if the offences are bailable, just give them bail,” he added.
