FG wasted N8bn on prison decongestion -Senate report

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Sun News Publishing

By: 

ADETUTU FOLASADE-KOYI, Abuja

Date: 

Thu, 07/05/2012 - 00:09

The Federal Government has wasted N8 billion on its Prison Decongestion Programme spanning a six-year period. This was the finding of the Senate Joint Committee on Police Affairs, Judiciary and Human Rights and Legal Matters during its review of the programme.

The report was submitted to the Senate and debated yesterday. Chairman of the joint committee, Umaru Dahiru noted that the Federal Government was not totally committed to the programme, as lawyers routinely abandoned cases. “The Prison Decongestion Programme of the Federal Government under the Ministry of Justice is quite expensive and unsustainable and as such, should be discontinued and transferred to the Legal Aid Council.

“The programme has been characterized by incidences of abandoned cases by lawyers who were allocated briefs by the Ministry of Justice. Sometimes, such cases end up being handled by the Legal Aid Council. “Since 2006, a whooping sum of N8.7 billion has so far been expended on the programme with little or nothing to show for it.”

Besides, the Senate committees noted that, “the Ad-Hoc Committee set up by the Ministry of Justice to evaluate the general performance of the programme through visits to prisons in 2006 to 2010 revealed that some legal practitioners did not approach the assignment with the required diligence.”

As panacea, Senate recommended an amendment of the Constitution which would remove prisons from the exclusive legislative List and take it to the concurrent legislative list “in order to allow states with requisite resources to build and maintain states prison.”

Senate also implored government to fund the Nigerian law enforcement agencies properly, in order to replace the archaic system of investigation with modern forensic system of investigation.

SOURCE: 5 July 2012.