CS eyes ways to work within Budget limits

National

CORRECTIONAL Services is looking at a number of strategies to minimise expenditure to fit their budget next year, says deputy commissioner corporate affairs Stephen Pokanis.
Pokanis said during an annual activity implementation plan that the Correctional Services budget allocation of K129 million for next year was the same as this year and last year.
“This year has been tough and we have seen a decline in terms of budget,” he said.
In terms of CS budget breakup, Pokanis said K92 million was for personnel emoluments, K12 million for capital, K10 million for infrastructure, K2 million for the prison industry and K13 million was allocated for goods and services in general.
Pokanis said goods and services had the biggest cut in their budget as according to their normal estimated expenditure for food alone was K14.2 million.
“We cannot make miracles out of the K13 million to cater for food costs,” he said
Pokanis said they could utilise spare land in their prisons for agriculture and livestock to cater for the shortage in their budget to produce food for inmates.
“The region that spends more on ration is the Highlands region with K4.38 million, Northern K3.83 million, Southern region K3.14 and Niugini Islands region with K2.9 million, this all adds up to K14.2 million for food alone for the prisoners,” he said. Pokanis said other strategies to address the shortage of funding would be to seek government appproval to release prisoners under special conditions.