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Hygiene and security to be addressed at Montagne Posée Prison, says Minister Fonseka |28 November 2020

Hygiene and security to be addressed at Montagne Posée Prison, says Minister Fonseka

Following his visit to the facilities of the Seychelles Prison Service (SPS) yesterday morning, Minister for Internal Affairs Errol Fonseka expressed some concerns pertaining to hygiene and sanitation, as well as security at the Montagne Posée Prison.

Speaking to the media after having visited the numerous SPS facilities, namely, the prison, the SPS Bois de Rose facility and the secretariat, Minister Fonseka highlighted the urgent need to rectify plumbing and other hygiene related issues, as well as lighting at some prison facilities.

“First and foremost, as you know, it is not easy to run a prison. You have a situation where prisoners whose rights have been removed, but at the same time, we are dealing with humans so there is the humanitarian aspect which I observed today that prison officers understand well enough. We need to ensure to balance all of this with the necessity for security when a person is imprisoned. People are imprisoned for committing a crime and we do not want that they have a chance to continue to do so while imprisoned.

“With regard to the prisoners themselves, inside where they are held, there are certain things that have happened in relation to architecture, water discharge and toilet discharge, which there is really a lot of room for improvement. The issue is that paint and lighting, as lighting is limited as well, but Mr St Ange has renovated on three and there are about 14 to do, but we can’t do this all at once as we need to remove them from one and transfer them, complete it and then move them back which can be time consuming as well, but these are areas that we will look into. As well as the mess, hygiene is quite well but at the same time, it could also be improved,” Minister Fonseka stated.

In addition to hygiene, security is a major challenge he said, with prisoners having access to certain rights which they should not, such as having mobile phone communications. The objective when operating a prison, Minister Fonseka said, is to rehabilitate and reform prisoners. As such, security and controls will be stepped up he said through the use of modern technological devices, and programmes implemented involving community work, others aimed at curbing anti-social behaviour, and discipline boot camps.

“We need to ensure that we don’t end up in a situation whereby we forget why people are there, and we need to also ensure that when they are there, they are reformed before they leave. And the reform programme, I need to congratulate Superintendent St Ange as the programme is working for the time being, but regardless, we need to ensure that there are certain things that we improve on,” Minister Fonseka added.

Furthermore, Minister Fonseka intends to start discussions with the Attorney General’s Office, regarding probation, licenses and tagging, for which the current legislative framework does not provide.

Despite the challenges SPS is faced with, Minister Fonseka conveyed gratitude to Superintendent Raymond St Ange for his “impressive efforts”. He was particularly impressed with the present community work programme which is manned only by a handful of SPS employees, as well as the Bois de Rose remand facility.

Superintendent Raymond St Ange echoed similar sentiments, expressing full support for Minister Fonseka’s vision for SPS.

He too noted the need for additional resources, mainly financial and human resource to initiate planned projects, including renovations on the main male block.

He remarked that only three of the fourteen sections have been renovated over three budget cycles, and the strategy is to continue rehabilitating the block to decongest further the male block.

The accompanying photos show Minister Fonseka touring the SPS facilities yesterday.

 

Laura Pillay

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