Inmates Face Hunger As Prison Food Contractors Complain Of Being Broke

The contractors supplying food items and gas to Nigerian prisons across the country have complained of being broke.

The contractors complained that unless President Muhammadu Buhari and the new Minister of Interior personally intervene to settle a total of 6billion naira they are being owed by the federal government, they would be grounded.

In a Save-Our-Soul (SOS) letter on Friday, November 13, addressed to President Buhari, the contractors, under the aegis of Nigeria Prison Service Ration and Gas Contractors (NPSRGC), said that they have not been paid for the supply of the food items and gas to the prisons since January 2015.

They also stated that they have resorted to taking bank loans with all the accumulative interests, as some of them have had to dispose of their houses and other properties just so that they would meet up.

The contractors made it clear that if they are not paid the outstanding money before the end of November, they would have no money to continue to supply food items and gas to the prisons in December, a situation which they said, poses great danger to the fragile security of the country.

“Needless to say that if prisoners and inmates of the nation’s prisons are not fed for two days, they could go haywire and the consequences are not good to imagine. We don’t want any national embarrassment for Mr President and his new government.”

The contractors said that before 2015, they used to be paid two weeks ahead of time, but wondered why the system changed to the extent that they were the ones using their money to buy the food items and gas for the prisons before they were reimbursed.

“We are therefore appealing to the Commander-In-Chief to mobilise funds from anywhere to settle our bill before it is too late, knowing that top on his priority is security. We have endured long enough,” the letter read.

The letter of appeal to the President, copies of which were sent to the Minister of Interior, the Comptroller-General of the Prison and others, was signed by the association’s President, S. K Sanni, National Secretary, Mr Eugene Agro and the National Vice President (North West), Ibrahim A. Asarakawa.