FEC approves N3.5bn operational vehicles for prisons
–Lack of funds hamper road projects–Fashola
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday approved the purchase of 320 operational vehicles for Nigeria Prison Service at a cost of N3.5 billion.
The approval was part of efforts to decongest prisons across the country and ensure speedy dispensation of justice and strengthen criminal justice system.
Briefing State House Correspondents shortly after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Minister of Interior, Lieutenant General Abdulrahamad Dambazau said the procurement would be from local manufacturers, assemblies and vendors within Nigeria.
According to him, the decision to procure the vehicles from local manufacturers was in line with the effort to follow through government policy to ensure that most of the procurement of the equipment and such vehicles are done locally.
According to him, this would also provide opportunity for job creation and also solve some problems in the prison system.
He said, “the prisons being one of the legs of the criminal justice system, the others being the police and the judiciary, is to see how best we improve in terms of conveying prison inmates to courts in particular so that we do not jeopardize their chances of their getting justice”
“This has been happening because for a very long time the prison system has suffered lack of operational vehicles and as such quite a number of prisoners remain in prisons longer than necessary, because they do not have the opportunity to be conveyed to the courts. So this is the essence of this”‘ Dambazau said.
He explained while council approved the procurement of the vehicles, the ministry of interior also want to ensure proper maintenance of the vehicles and ensure that they serve the purpose that they are bought for.
“The prison population as at today stands at about 65,000 prisoners, out of this, about 70 per cent are awaiting trial. And part of the problem is lack of logistics, because there are 5,022 courts that on daily basis you have to transport prisoners to attend to their cases.
“There are other issues that has to do with other two legs of the tripod, that is the police and the court. One of the problem of the courts is adjournment of cases, that is also tied to the issue of conveying prisoners to court.
“This is in addition to the fact that some of those delays are caused by the lawyers. The third part of the issue is how to strengthen the police in terms of investigations because if the cases are not properly investigated, that too can cause delay in the trial”, Dambazau added.
The minister explained that government was making efforts to reduce the number of inmates awaiting trial, stressing that the criminal justice Act of 2015 has also made provision for alternative to sentencing, otherwise known as non-custodian sentencing.
He said the courts can now use the alternative available instead of sending the individual to prison and depending on the crime committed, apply other means of dealing with the case.
Minister of Power, Works nd Housing, Babatunde Fashola while speaking in the poor state of roads in the country, explained that debts owed to contractors had stalled progress on road construction and maintenance.
“I think that we need to properly identify the nomenclature of some of these roads. The fact that the roads are in the FCT does not necessarily make them federal roads. Secondly, the point also to make is that our ability to intervene is constrained by our budget.
“You cannot build a road without appropriation and authorisation for it. When we set out last year on assumption of office, I made it very clear what the liabilities that we had were. We had to deal with contracts valued in the region of about N2trillion or N2.2trillion that had been awarded before we came.
“There were debts owed to those contractors. There were liabilities to complete them in the region of about N1.5trillion. Now the budget that we have for the three ministries that I superintend are in the region of N400 billion plus. Over N200 billion is dedicated to roads across the country. So that is the deficit that we have to deal with”, the Minster said.
Also at the briefing. Minister of State for Petroleum resources, Ibe Kachikwu disclosed that FEC approved the resuscitation of the National Council on Hydrocarbon.
According to him, “the council is an ombudsman council that meets once year in an extraordinary times to review policies in the petroleum sector. It should be a gathering of people from business, oil sector, oil communities and ministries that are directly or indirectly affected by the policies we roll out in the ministry”
