Prisoners cooking in Luzira prison.It is said lack of saucepans in the prisons makes inmates to eat in intervals with beans coming first before the cooks bring the posho.

Officials from the Uganda prison services led by their undersecretary, Simon Kimono, and today (Wednesday 26, October) had a difficult time before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee of Parliament who grilled them over their claim that they lack enough sauce pans to prepare meals for inmates.
There was drama when MPs on this committee chaired by Soroti district Woman MP, Angelina Ossege, discovered that inmates at Luzira Upper prison eat their posho and beans meals at different intervals due to fewer sauce pans at the prison which houses over 3,000 inmates beyond it official handling capacity of 600 recommended prisoners.
The MPs were interfacing with the prisons officials over the Auditor General’s queries of the financial year 2014/15 where the prison authorities are said to have diverted 66 million shillings meant for food to purchase fire wood instead.
MPs while grilling the officials enquired on why they give inmates food at midday and beans at 2pm in the day instead of having a full meal of the day. They also heard that the inmates are served beans and posho at different time because of few source pans available for cooking.
The legislators were surprised to learn that the prison cooks first serve inmates with beans before they embark on preparing posho using the same saucepans.

This angered the MPs who then questioned to why the prison authority could not budget for purchase of enough saucepans so as inmates get both food and sauce at the same time.

Matheniko County MP, John Baptist Lokii.

“Why didn’t you in your budgets ensure that you include enough money for cooking utensils? How do you feed inmates in such an inhuman manner? This should stop in the near future,” charged Matheniko County MP, John Baptist Lokii who is a member of the committee.

However, the commissioner in charge of custodial services at the Uganda prison services, Robert Munanura, told the committee that upper prison in Luzira and other prisons have fewer saucepans because of under funding.

Another commissioner in charge of planning and development at Uganda prison services, Eli Muhumuza, said that the Uganda prison service requested for 54 billion shillings this financial year for inmates meal but were only given 22 billion shillings.
Lokii however, said that he may be forced to move Parliament to block the passing of the prison service budget if they do not buy more saucepans for cooking inmate’s food.
Kimono apologized for some mistakes and promised to ensure that things are done in the better way in prisons.