THE Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services has appealed for additional funding from Treasury to equip prisoners with life skills that will help them cope with life after completing their jail terms.
BY SHARON SIBINDI
Speaking at a pass-out parade at Ntabazinduna Training School in Bulawayo on Saturday, ZPCS Commissioner-General Paradzai Zimondi said various practical skills acquired during prisoners’ jail terms will become handy on their release from prison.
“The effort entails relocating the prisons in urban areas to farms, such as moving Harare Central Prison to a farm like Ridigita in Marondera or even to Chikurubi,” he said.
“A lot of resources are required to move to such prisons and also in creating the necessary space and infrastructure of their suitable accommodation, hence, we appeal to the government for financial assistance. We also welcome partnerships under the public private partnerships in this noble idea,” he said.
Zimondi added that they were still mobilising resources to set up an open prison for female inmates.
“As ZPCS, we are looking forward to a situation, whereby, all female offenders serve their sentences at open prisons. All our female offenders qualify for open prison, but we currently do not have such a facility for them, although approval was made by the government to establish an open prison at Marondera. Progress has been stalled by lack of funding,” he said.
In a speech read on his behalf, Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa urged the corporate world to come on board and bail out ZCPS.
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“I call upon the corporate world to come on board and assist the ZPCS in support of what is being done by churches, civic organisations and individual persons, who have made and continues to make great cash and kind in enhancing the offender rehabilitation programmes,” he said.
