The Director-General of Prisons in charge of Services, Mrs. Patience Baffoe-Bonnie (ESQ), has revealed that the government has approved an upward adjustment of {c}5 per inmate daily.
The approval, according to her, was done through the instruction of President John Dramani Mahama, though the funds are yet to be released.
Inmates in our Prisons were allocated Ghc1.80 per head for feeding, an amount which several individuals described as woefully inadequate.Mrs. Baffoe-Bonnie disclosed this before the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday, September 30, 2025.
According to her, they had to rely on their own gardens, a small fish pond, and donations from churches to supplement food supplies.
The inadequate feeding, she lamented, leads to riots, putting prison officers at serious risk.
“Once the feeding is wrong, it has ripple effects on health and every other thing; we are working assiduously to ensure the rules change. We are hopeful the GHC5 a day will be increased in the course of 2026 to reflect the feeding regime for a disgruntled adult, an angry adult behind bars,” she said.
“We have to note on this platform that one of the things that is giving cause for inmates to riot is food. And so, we do everything within our means to ensure that as much as possible, we’re containing the inmates without the riots.
“Because if there are any riots, the poor prison officer becomes the first point of attack before any intervention. I want to say that beyond the feeding, there are also challenges,” she stressed.
Meanwhile she has called doe reforms to help improve the conditions in our Prisons.
“If we want to have serious public safety in this country, we have to prioritise the needs of prisoners. Because they’re part of us, they will be with us, and we don’t know who will be our next guest,” she stated.
