AfricaPress-Tanzania: PRESIDENT John Magufuli has issued a 30-day notice to all public institutions that owe the Tanzania Prisons Services (TPS) to clear the outstanding 10bn/- debt.
The president also directed the Ministry of Finance and Planning disburse 3.7bn/- in a week’s time for the completion of the Prisons Services headquarters and furniture factory at Msalato.
“Hand over the list of all indebted institutions to the Ministry of Finance and Planning for them to start clearing their debts within the 30 days,” President Magufuli said after he inaugurated the headquarters of the Tanzania Prisons Services on Thursday in Dodoma Region.
For institutions which will not clear their debts within the 30-day notice, the president promised to supervise the exercise himself of directing part of their budgetary allocation to TPS through the Treasury.
He assured the Prison Services that they were going to recover all the money so long as the debts were genuine.
Dr Magufuli was happy with the transformation and achievements recorded in a short period of time by the Prison Services Department.
“Today you have started to please me…this is a new Tanzanian Prisons Services, unlike the previous one,” he said.
“I have witnessed the buildings built at a cost of 900m/-; if the work would have been undertaken by other people, the cost could have been different,” he added.
Having been pleased by the reforms, Dr Magufuli decided to grant a sum of 2.5bn/- to the Prisons Services to complete the construction of the headquarters.
Equally, he granted another 1.18bn/- to cater for the construction of the department’s furniture factory.
He noted that the factory makes up a total of four furniture factories which belong to the Prisons Services, including the ones at Ukonga, Arusha, among other areas.
According to the president, the factory is going to serve a great deal to the country in terms of saving foreign currency spent on procuring government furniture from abroad.
He thus urged the Prisons Services to collaborate with the Tanzania Forest Services Agency (TFS) in exploiting the logs accumulated from the country’s forests for the production of furniture.
President Magufuli also granted the request of the Commissioner General of Prisons Services Maj. Gen. Suleiman Mzee to alter the use of the 13bn/- earlier allocated for the construction of their headquarters to finance other development projects.
The president granted the plea, urging the Home Affairs Minister Mr George Simbachawene to follow the required procedures for the request to take course.
In line with granting the request, Dr Magufuli applauded the Prison Services for succeeding to accommodate 80 per cent of the prisoners’ food.
He pointed out that by March, last year, the department managed to save up to 10.16bn/- which could have been spent for buying food.
He, however, called upon the department to exhaust the remaining 20 per cent by ensuring the prisoners work to acquire their own food.
Dr Magufuli said the department was rich in labour considering the number of prisoners and remandees.
“Just recently, I had pardoned over 40,000 prisoners; to date the prisons acquire over 30,000 prisoners with different expertise.
“Employ, the prisoners’ expertise to solve the challenges that you are facing…it is a shame an officer does not have uniforms, food or place to live while we have a big number of prisoners,” he said.
The president noted that a plan could be devised whereby prisoners produce food by 100 per cent and extra 20 or 30 per cent surplus which can be divided through set procedures.
He said similar techniques were employed by developed countries, the reason their prisons can operate well. Earlier on, the president inaugurated 24 houses for prison officers at Isanga Prison.
