Pass Knowledge To Prison Inmates

The Administrator and Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC), Kofi Attor, has advised prison officers benefiting from its ICT training programme to pass the knowledge on to inmates at the various prisons to help them acquire skills in ICT.

 

He stressed that with basic knowledge in ICT, prison inmates could do something better for a living, after serving their sentences.

 

Mr. Attor who is a former Member of Parliament (MP) for Ho Central, made the call when he closed a one-week ICT training programme GIFEC organized for officers of the Ghana Prison Service (GPS) in Sunyani.

 

The one-week training was attended by 33 officers drawn from all the various Ghana Prison stations in the country. Mr. Attor explained that GIFEC had focused much attention to train prison officers because, that was the only way in which inmates could also acquire skills in ICT.

 

The former MP further mentioned that prisons should not be a place to punish convict but instead an area to re-correct and reform inmates so that they would be well reintegrated and become useful in society.

 

He noted that though the GPS had created opportunities for inmates to be trained in tailoring carpentry, masonry and dressmaking such opportunity was not making any meaningful impact in the reformation of inmates.

 

Mr. Attor noted that, ICT is an area many of the youth were interested and advised prisons officers to ensure that inmates benefited from the training offered them.

 

He emphasized that there is always a new development in ICT, and asked the officers to take advantage of the training to upgrade their ICT skills.

 

Director of Prisons (DOP) Anthony Yeboah, Director in-charge of Human Resource and Operations of the GPS applauded GIFEC for its numerous supports in enhancing the work of the service.

 

He disclosed that GIFEC had established 16 ICT centers, furnished with 185 modern computers at the various stations adding aside that it had also provided the service with logistics and equipments.

 

 DOP Yeboah was optimistic that relationship between the service and the GIFEC, established in 2010, would be strengthened in coming years.

 

 He pointed out that the government and its partners was poised to providing the needed logistics and equipments to enhance the work of the service and advised officers to be more professional in the discharge of their duties.

 

DOP Yeboah stated that the reformation of prison inmates was a shared and collective responsibility and also used the opportunity to condemn stigmatization of inmates.