Inmates miss court as biting shortage of fuel hits prisons

The prisons department is cash-strapped and operations are almost grinding to a halt, The Nairobian has established.

Nairobi Area and Prison HQs are the hardest hit stations. Work there is occasionally disrupted due to lack of fuel, electricity and stationary.

So serious is the fuel shortage that the main supplier was forced to cut delivery due to accrued debt said to run into millions of shillings.

The action to halt supply on May 22 affected many prisons around the city where warders faced difficulty transporting suspects to and from courts given many vehicles had no fuel.

Prisons in the city include, Kamiti, Lang’ata Women, Jamhuri, Nairobi West and Industrial Area Remand. Warders in the affected jails claim operations are unpredictable because they are at the mercy of the supplier.

“We are unable to move around the city because we have no fuel, the supplier at the Industrial Area deport on Kampala Road refused to give us the normal ration saying he was owed a lot of money,” said a warder.

He further claimed that during power outages, the prison where he works goes into darkness since back-up generators have no fuel most of the time.

The warder said this is slowing the criminal justice process as some suspects have missed court.

At Magereza House, the prisons HQs, some offices lack general basic stationary.

“It is even worse here. We have no reams of paper, and photocopy machines have no toners,” said an officer.

Senior Assistant Commissioner of Prisons Richard Ombima, who is in charge of procurement, told The Nairobian: “The right person to respond to that is the Commissioner General or his deputy. You can trace them through headquarters official switchboard.”

It is however, understood that it is the Treasury to blame for either deliberately failing, or delaying the release of funds to jumpstart operations since Ombima had prepared and submitted the budget on time.