Member of Parliament (MP) for Mangochi Monkey Bay constituency Ralph Jooma has bemoaned lack of investment in the country’s prison sector.

According to Jooma, there are a number of factors that are contributing to the congestion of the prisons and authorities need to work on both long and short term interventions.

The Mangochi Monkey Bay lawmaker, who was speaking in Parliament, said it is unfortunate to note that a prison like Maula has close 3, 000 inmates though it was supposed to have only 800 inmates.

“It was a concern from me considering that our prisons are heavily congested, in fact the congestion rate it going as higher as 300 percent.

“And this is big congestion because as you know that the correct designation is that each inmate is supposed to have at least two square meters of their own, that’s according to human rights regulations,” said Jooma.

Reacting to the development, Minister of Education Homeland Security Richard Chimwendo Banda has disclosed that government is working on a number of interventions including pardoning those who have committed minor offenses.

“Indeed there is congestion in our prisons because these reformations when they were being constructed they never faced a situation where we are going to have these numbers.

What we have done apart the pardon or parole system that we have been using by recommending to the President, we have also come up with a number of initiatives,” Chimwendo said.

In the last two years; 2019 to 2021, government pardoned close to 6, 727 prisoners.

Chimwendo Banda has since disclosed that government will bring the Correctional Services Bill to the National Assembly which will, among others, bring sanity in the reformation centers.