Chronicle Editor
JUSTICE, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi was on Friday told of the immense challenges that the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service (ZPCS) is facing in taking care of inmates.
He toured Khami Prison Complex, just west of Bulawayo, to have an on-the-ground appreciation of challenges affecting the country’s prisons.
Khami Prison Complex houses Khami Maximum Prison, Khami Remand Prison, Mlondolozi Female Prison and Khami Medium Prison.
Because of lack of resources, ZPCS is failing to provide the basics to prisoners — food, health care and clothing.
It cannot feed them a balanced diet, resulting in some of them suffering malnutrition. Even if food was available, there is nothing to serve it in as the prison doesn’t have enough plates. Also, the complex does not have an ambulance which makes it difficult for the local health facility to ferry sick inmates to bigger facilities such as United Bulawayo and Mpilo hospitals for more advanced medical attention.
Tuberculosis is prevalent behind the high walls, the same for diabetes for which the prison lacks drugs. A nurse spoke of how painful it is for them to watch as some prisoners lose their lives due to lack of oxygen.
Indeed, given the challenges ZPCS is facing, prisoners at Khami are incurring double punishment. Incarceration is punishment enough, but for the inmates to then suffer extreme hunger, waste away in a clinic that lacks oxygen, suffer untreated diabetes and die because there is no vehicle to move them to the nearest bigger, better equipped hospital, is to inflict a harsher punishment on them.
We feel for them.
The difficulties at Khami may not be unique to that facility. Prisoners at other jails elsewhere around the country could be facing similar challenges.
It is good that Minister Ziyambi visited Khami to get an idea of the situation there. It is also good that the officials there openly told him of how handicapped they were to take care of prisoners.
“We have an obligation to improve the conditions to a level that is acceptable internationally in terms of our human rights obligations to our inmates and even our officers,” he said.
“So, the visit is basically to have a feel of what is obtaining so that I can discuss with my counterpart the Minister of Finance and Economic Development (Professor Mthuli Ncube) on funding of our institution.”
He added that there was an urgent need for the Government to improve the quality of life for the prisoners.
“I noticed that there are several challenges, one of the major challenges rather is that we need to ensure that our inmates have blankets, medication. I just had a tour of the hospital and there are challenges of medication, ambulance, the water system and the plumbing system needs to be redone,” he said.
We implore the Government to move with speed to save prisoners from extreme hunger, unnecessary suffering due to treatable diseases and preventable death. They, too, do not deserve the degrading situation of going about virtually naked or eating right from their palms.
Yes, they committed crimes for which they must be punished. However, they have not been condemned to a life not worth living.
We are confident that Prof Ncube will enhance Government spending towards improving the conditions in prisons so that they effectively discharge their mandate of reforming and rehabilitating inmates who would be responsible, law-abiding citizens at the end of their terms.
We also encourage the ZPCS to intensify its agricultural activities to be able to harvest enough food for inmates, in that way reducing its dependence on the fiscus, which has many more competing, equally deserving needs to cater for.
Online Reporter