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Nigerian Prisoners Face Hunger As Food Scarcity Looms- Punch by Bekwarra(m): 9:30pm On Nov 16, 2015 |
Prisons inmates across the country may be thrown
into hunger from December if urgent steps are not
taken to settle the outstanding bills of food
contractors.
The contractors, under the aegis of Nigeria Prison
Service Ration and Gas Contractors, have already
made their intention to stop supplying food and gas
to prisons from December known in a letter
addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari.
A copy of the letter, dated November 13 and sighted
by our correspondent on Sunday, was jointly signed
by the association’s President, Chief S. K. Sanni;
National Secretary, Mr. Eugene Agro; and the
National Vice President (North West), Alhaji Ibrahim
A. Asarakawa.
The Minister of Interior and the Comptroller-General
of Prisons, among other top government officials,
were copied.
The contractors informed Buhari that the Federal
Government’s indebtedness to them currently stands
at N6bn.
They said with the outstanding bill, they no longer
have the financial capacity to source for food and gas
with which they could supply the prisons.
They therefore appealed to the President and the
minister in charge of prisons to intervene in the
matter by ensuring that the backlog is cleared.
They made it clear that if the debt was not paid by the
end of this month, they might not be able to supply
food items and gas in December, as they have
exhausted not only their financial resources but also
the sources where they have been getting the money
to do business.
The contractors stated that they have not been paid
for the supply of food items and gas to the prisons
since January this year.
The situation, they added, forced them to resort to
taking bank loans with all the accumulative interests,
even as some of them sold their houses and other
properties in order to meet up.
In the years past, the contractors said the Federal
Government used to pay them two weeks ahead of
time.
They 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.
They urged the President to act fast in order to
forestall stoppage of food to prisons, a situation
which they said poses a great danger to the fragile
security of the country.
The contractors advised Buhari to mobilise funds
from any source to settle them in order to forestall
the national embarrassment that hunger in prisons
could cause his government which has security as
one of its priorities.
The letter read in part, “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 do not want any national embarrassment for Mr.
President and his new government.
“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.” punchng.com/food-scarcity-looms-in-prisons-over-n6bn-debt/ |
Re: Nigerian Prisoners Face Hunger As Food Scarcity Looms- Punch by Chubhie: 10:35pm On Nov 16, 2015 |
Middle men. Soon contractors for supply of toilet tissue paper will go on strike. |
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