Covid-19: Junior Prison Officers Threaten to Down Tool, Demand PPEs and Allowances

Junior Prison officers have threatened to withdraw some of their services effective August 14 2020 to force authorities to address their grievances concerning risk allowances and Personal Protective Equipment in the wake of Covid-19.

In a memo issued yesterday and addressed to the Ministry of Homeland Security, the junior officers say they will not attend to suspects as well as convicts who are either quarantined or have tested positive for Coronavirus.

They further say they will be reporting for duties but will not get closer to any of the inmates.

“No new admissions will be allowed into prisons from courts. Entry into prisons by court officials, the police or any civilian personnel shall not be permitted,” reads the Memo in part.

However, they say, regardless of whether on duty or not, the junior officers shall be gathering in their large numbers in all entry points into the prison premises to make sure that security of the formations is not compromised.

“It is only when we shall have the allowances into our bank accounts and supplied with the much needed PPE that we shall resume our normal duties,” it reads.

The junior officer claim that they were told that government had secured about K100 million for the junior officers’ allowances in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and that all prisons will be supplied with adequate PPE within the shortest period “but up to now nothing has been done not even mass screening and disinfection of the prisons.”

Meanwhile, number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country’s prisons is at 118 for inmates and 21 for prison officers including a single death.

-Nation Online-