Based on recommendations made for the modernisation of the Guyana Prisons Service, the government will be moving to establish a board of governance to have oversight of the local prison system.
The consultancy service for the modernisation of the prison system was awarded to Jamaican experts Trevor Hamilton and Associates, International Management Consultants and is an IDB-funded project.
According to Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan, the firm recommended several options to the Guyana Government for better management of the local prison services.
“The first question that was asked was in relation to selecting one from five options: whether we privatise the prison system, whether we regionalise it, a combination of both or whether we kept it in State hands with a board of governance. We opted for the governance structure to be in State hands with a board of governance… We’ve now even further that government structure along with amendments that this new governance structure will cater for, and Mr Duke Pollard is the lawyer that is working towards getting the amendment of the Prisons Act to accommodate the mordernisation of the GPS” Ramjattan said.
These proposed amendments, the minister said, are to be completed by the end of this month.
The Public Security Minister sought to use the opportunity to respond to critics who accused his administration of not implementing any of the reforms put forward following the March 2016 Prison riots.
He said that while certain aspects of these recommendations were implemented, the majority of them incur huge costs and will have to be done on a phased basis.
Meanwhile, in light of it being published in several sections of the media that 300 prisoners have been released from the “walled area” of the Lusignan Prison, Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan on Thursday deemed this “a mistake.”
According to Ramjattan, he could recall being asked by a reporter recently “how many people have been removed from the Lusignan and other places” and as such, he had indicated that it was about 300 persons.
The Minister explained on Thursday that of the over 1000 prisoners taken to Lusignan, 83 were transferred to the Mazaruni Prison, 90 to the New Amsterdam Prison, 48 to the Timehri Prison and 151 were placed into the Lusignan Prison itself.
In addition, utilising his power under the Prison Act, Ramjattan said that he approved the early release of 57 prisoners. Also, the Magistrates have granted a total of 34 persons bail.
As such, approximately 463 prisoners are presently being held in the walled area of the Lusignan Prison.
