Gov’t to seek Parliament approval for supplementary budget to boost prison system
DPI, GUYANA, Thursday, July 20, 2017
The government will be seeking Parliamentary approval for additional funds to re-operationalise the Georgetown Prisons, when it returns to National Assembly on July 27.
In an interview with the Department of Public Information (DPI), Minister of Finance Winston Jordan explained that the ministry is awaiting the financial figures from the Public Security Ministry, “They’re to put a plan that involves the emergency expenditure and other short-term expenditures. The other long term or medium-term expenditure will be provided for in the 2018 budget, so we’ll just deal with the emergency expenditure for now, which we’ll return to parliament for shortly.”
The Ministries of Public Infrastructure and Public Security have been utilising their existing resources to meet emergency expenditure required to fund rehabilitation works at the Georgetown Prisons. Both ministries will be refunded even as they seek additional monies for other areas they will have to meet, Minister Jordan explained.
Following the July 09 fire, which gutted the wooden sections of the Georgetown Prisons, just over 1,000 prisoners were transferred to the Lusignan, Timehri, New Amsterdam and Mazaruni Prisons. This necessitated additional spending by the Ministries of Public Infrastructure and Public Security as additional infrastructural works had to be undertaken to facilitate the temporary holding facility at Lusignan and rehabilitation works on the Camp Street concrete prison.
By: Ranetta La Fleur