President Museveni has hailed the Commissioner General of Prisons, Dr.Johnson Byabashaija for superintending upon a "scandal free" institution but also ensuring its transformation.
"I thank the Commissioner General of Prisons and staff for contributing to peace of Uganda by building the prisons service afresh from the very low level of where it was in 1986," Museveni said.
The president was on Sunday commissioning and passing out of 2234 prisons officers at the Kololo ceremonial grounds .
The 2234 included 200 cadet assistant superintendents, 318 cadet principal officers and 1716 prison warders and wardresses who have completed basic prisons management training.
The president said the country has four sets of security agencies including the police, army, intelligence services and the prisons.
Museveni explained that whereas the army is tasked with dealing with aggression from outside the country and adding police in dealing with internal aggressors, police is tasked with dealing with criminals working together with intelligence services.
"Prisons in my view have three tasks including reform, skill and punish where necessary. Your job is to reform these criminals but also give them skills so that when they get out of prisons, they have what they didn't have. You are also mandated to punish according to the law. You are doing this quite well," Museveni said.
He described Uganda Prisons as being scandal free.
"I am very happy with the good work you are doing. I don't hear many scandals in the prisons.I have not heard many cases."
The president however asked that prison makes used of its engineers to ensure they are in charge of construction, other than handing over the projects to private owned companies.
"Why don't you use engineers that you have to build your own barracks and offices so that the only expenditure is on materials? When you involve the private sector, many of them don't have their own money and borrow from banks which charge them 18% or 20% and if the cost of the project was to be 10million, it now becomes 12 million because of the bank loan that the contractor has borrowed. Then these private companies want big profits and that's another 2million to make it 14 million and when you add VAT, you find that a project which was 10 million goes to 18 million."
The president said by using their own engineers to construct barracks and other projects, the prison will ensure they will only look for money for building materials which is a bit cheaper.
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The Commissioner General of Prisons, Dr. Johnson Byabashaija applauded the president for supporting the building of the Uganda Prisons service.
He noted that whereas five years ago the prisons had only 9000 officers, this number has grown by leaps and bounds to now 1214 staff.
"When you add the 2234 officers being passed out today, it makes it 14248 staff and we must thank you the president for your effort in boosting the prisons officers numbers. Its is a joy to see 200 cadet assistant superintendents of prisons. This is unprecedented," Dr.Byabashaija said.
He also hailed the judiciary for helping for helping in ensuring that the number of convicts in the prisons goes up.
Dr.Byabashaija explained that they currently have 75340 inmates, 52% of these being convicts which he said is a significant development in terms of justice.
He however asked the judiciary to speed up the hearing and disposal of cases to help reduce congestion in prisons, especially by inmates on remand.
