Pokanis wants more money for jails

By TREVOR WAHUNE
ACTING Correctional Service Commissioner Steven Pokanis has called for an increase in the department’s annual allocation from K10 million to at least K17 million because the cost of feeding inmates is increasing.
Pokanis told The National on Friday that with the current budget, they get only K5.60 as the cost of feeding one inmate a day.
“We would like to at least increase that to K9 per day,” he said.
Pokanis and outgoing commissioner Michael Waipo are working on a budget to be submitted to the Government.
“Looking at the basics, if you go to a store and buy biscuit, and maybe a Coke, that would basically be the end of the K9 in others centres apart from Port Moresby,” Pokanis said.
He said the prison in Parawagi, for example, had used all the money for food.
“They exhausted all their money on prisoners’ food. We also had a shortfall of rations. Parawagi is not the only institution which has fallen short. There are six others as well where rations have depleted.”
He said they were now using money allocated for transport and travel to buy food.
“This is because just one day without a meal, and prisoners will just walk out,” he said.
“We have projected the budget at K9 million. However, with at least 5000 prisoners, multiplied by K9 and, you get about K45,000 and multiply that by 365 days, I would expect a huge increase from K10 million to K11 million to K16 million to K17 million each year,” Pokanis said.
“The crazy thing about this budget is that it not only caters for prisoners’ food. It also caters for our uniform (detainees and officers), ammunition, firearms, and utensils.
“But we sacrifice more on feeding detainees, while our debt in terms of borrowing, and asking our service providers to make uniforms and give it to us, the debts are now spiraling up.”